Opal Dream

The film's sweetness derives primarily from the relationship between Ashmol and his unusual sister, and draws much of its richness from the unfamiliar and fascinating world of opal prospecting.

It's tear-jerker material but ends up being quite touching, and it's a good choice for family viewing.

An exceptional family film, arriving just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. Directed with sensitivity by "The Full Monty's" Peter Cattaneo, it is the antithesis of the standard synthetic Hollywood family movie, which is all too often weighed down by ludicrously exaggerated special effects and stunts and glazed over by gross humor.

Though there are no Montys, full or otherwise, the finale will lift you up.

The film squeezes out its feel-good messages like toothpaste from a tube.

From the first frames, when lollypops are offered to the camera, there's no escaping the saccharine miasma of whimsy enveloping Peter Cattaneo's Opal Dream.

Rush screaming from anything that announces itself as "a movie for children and grown-ups of all ages." Slight and shamelessly saccharine, Opal Dream is devoted to the proposition that it takes an Australian-outback village to validate the imaginary friends of a blond child who is too sensitive for this world but not, alas, for this sappy movie.