Creating a fantasy world to keep troubles at bay

THERE'S trouble in paradise, where one man's unconventional approach to the problems of a distant Pacific isle is to fuel imaginations and create a fantasy world for the kids he teaches by reading aloud from a classic of English literature. The words of Charles Dickens are an essential element of Mr Pip - but can mere fiction overcome the harsh realities of a fast-changing world?

The film, written and directed by Andrew Adamson (Shrek, The Chronicles of Narnia) and based on the novel by fellow Kiwi Lloyd Jones, is a fictional account of events that took place around 1990 on Bougainville, a pristine mineral-rich island outpost of Papua New Guinea, when government forces faced off against separatist rebels over the control of copper mines.

The island's natural beauty has been overshadowed by political problems and the situation has escalated to a point where Tom Watts (Hugh Laurie) is the only white man left on Bougainville. He wears a cream linen suit and (sometimes) a red clown nose while caring for his native wife Grace, who is afflicted with a bad case of island fever. Watts has left another life (and the demons that accompanied it) behind in England but now he feels obliged to engage and educate the children of Bougainville.