Parents' Guide to

When I Find the Ocean

By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 11+

Heavy historical drama tackles abuse, racism, runaways.

Movie PG 2006 104 minutes
When I Find the Ocean Poster Image

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What's the Story?

WHEN I FIND THE OCEAN follows 12-year-old Lily (Lily Matland Holly), who misses her father, lost at sea a few years before. She hates the man her mother is about to marry, partly because he regularly beats her. Rather than tell her mother, she runs away, searching for the sea that might hold her lost father. The journey takes her into the Alabama woods, where she's caught in an animal trap laid by stereotypically good-ol'-boy poachers. Lily's grandfather (Lee Majors) and his Native American best friend (Graham Greene) have taught her how to survive in the wild, but the trap defies her preparations. An African-American tugboat captain rescues her, but seeing the welts on her back, he is reluctant to return her to the family. KKK sympathizers organize a posse to catch him, assuming he means to rape her. At the same time, a panther has been spotted, striking fear into local hearts, and Martin Luther King's 1965 Selma march against segregation is about to launch.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

This movie's heart is in the right place, promoting tolerance, honesty, and decency, but it does all these things so simplistically that it's difficult to take in all the positive messages. Lily is portrayed with affectless blankness, leaving an emotional hole at the center of the story. Many scenes feel staged and lifeless, drawing attention to directorial ineptitude rather than to the historical legacy of prejudice and the ugliness that rode along with it. To their credit, the filmmakers make little overt attempt to explain social upheaval and the politics behind the Selma-to-Montgomery march. Still, the script is facile to the degree that it sometimes forgets to adhere to internal logic that's been established earlier. Ham-handed metaphors stand in for adroit storytelling. As the story winds down, there is a mad scurry to tie up loose plot threads, and several endings are presented one by one, including a quick cut to the panther, safely back in the woods, perhaps metaphorically suggesting that African-American people are safe now.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about Lily's grandmother's remark that even though people look different, they are all the same underneath.

  • Why do you think it was legal in some places in the U.S. to discriminate against African-American people?

  • Although slavery is now illegal in the U.S., do you think the once-legal practice still echoes in attitudes toward minorities today?

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