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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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Opal Dream (2006)

Rating: 2 1/2 Stars (out of 4)

Stone Daddy

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

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Working in Australia, the Oscar-nominated British director Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty) turns in a slightly forced, but ultimately winning children's story. A young girl, Kellyanne (Sapphire Boyce) believes unequivocally in her two imaginary friends, Pobby and Dingan. When her opal hunter father takes these "friends" to work and mistakenly "leaves them behind," Kellyanne grows sick with worry. Worse, her father is branded a "ratter" (i.e. a claim-jumper) after going back to "look" for them. Cattaneo and Phil Traill's screenplay, from a novella by Ben Rice, unfolds in clean, obvious sections with little room for subtlety or shading, but Cattaneo's direction and the solid performances smooth over these issues. Vince Colosimo, Jacqueline McKenzie and Christian Byers co-star as the rest of Kellyanne's family.

Starring: Sapphire Boyce, Vince Colosimo, Jacqueline McKenzie, Christian Byers, Peter Callan, Eliza Lovell, Andy McPhee, Robert Menzies, Adam Morgan, Rusty Potter, Denise Roberts
Written by: Peter Cattaneo, Phil Traill, based on a novella by Ben Rice
Directed by: Peter Cattaneo
MPAA Rating: PG for mild thematic elements, language and some violence
Running Time: 86 minutes
Date: December 8, 2006