On the 3th of September in New Zealand’s Cinemas the first viewing of “Tomorrow, when the war began” was shown. I’m quite sure that a lot of you have never heard about this movie before, and I haven’t either before the 2nd of September when my host sister asked me: “Would you like to come to the movies tomorrow afternoon, to watch Tomorrow, when the war began? I’m so excited!!>>. I replied: “Yes, sure! But I don’t know what the movie is about”. After my sentence she said something like: “How can’t you know this movie?!” and she started to talk about the story. I discovered that, in this part of the word, is famous as well as Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. Instead, the movie is taken from a series of seven young-adult novels that John Marsden wrote from 1993 to 1999. All seven are related to the first person who is by the main character, Ellie Linton. A part of a small band of teenagers wage a guerrilla war on the enemy soldiers in the region around their fictional home town of Wirrawee in Australia. The first one, Tomorrow when the war began, is the beginning of their adventure. The guys Ellie, Homer, Lee, Kevin, Corrie, Robyn and Fiona go out camping in a remote area of the bush for a week and when they return to their home, they find that all the people are missing. After a bit they discover that a foreign country had invaded Australia and… and I’ll not tell you what happened, because maybe one day someone will translate the book or maybe you can read it in English. It’s always a good exercise! What I can tell you is that this movie is awesome: a cool plot, different from the fantasy ones that are always the same, with good actors and amazing sets and all this is made in Australia and New Zealand. After watching the movie the only thing that you can think about is: “I wanna watch the second one!”. Now I can see why my host sister was excited and why Tomorrow, When The War Began and its sequels are one of the most popular and critically-acclaimed series of novels aimed at young readers in Australian literature history.
(Sofia D’Angelo, 4C)