Blueback

Abby is a young girl growing up on the coast of Western Australia, where her mother raises her in tune with the sea. On a dive she meets a large blue groper, a fish she names Blueback, and the two form a bond that lasts for years. As Abby gets older, she comes to see that the reefs and waters she loves are under threat, and that the same forces endangering Blueback also endanger her home. Her mother's efforts to protect the bay become Abby's own cause, and the film sets the girl's attachment to one fish against the wider question of what it takes to defend a coastline.

Robert Connolly directed and wrote the screenplay, adapting Tim Winton's novel, and produced with Liz Kearney and James Grandison. The film sits in the middle of Connolly's recent run of features, arriving between his 2021 film The Dry and its 2024 follow-up, Force of Nature: The Dry 2. Mia Wasikowska plays the adult Abby, with Ariel Donoghue and Ilsa Fogg as younger versions of the character, Radha Mitchell as her mother Dora, and Eric Bana as Mad Macka.

Released in late December 2022, the Australian-American production took in roughly two million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a 6 out of 10 from about 1,600 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.6 from a much smaller pool of 49 votes, so the two audiences agree on a moderate verdict.