Dolphin Tale

A true story: a dolphin named Winter lost her tail after becoming caught in a crab trap off the Florida coast. She was taken into a marine hospital, and a specialist in human prosthetics was brought in to build her an artificial tail. Winter plays herself in the film. After her rescue she lived at the same facility for years and became a place of pilgrimage for children with prosthetics, which the film folds into its story. The fictional side runs through Sawyer, the boy who finds her, and the family of the aquarium's vet; there is also a cousin who comes back from war with a prosthetic, and the film draws the parallel very plainly. Harry Connick Jr. plays the vet, Morgan Freeman the prosthetics specialist and Nathan Gamble plays Sawyer. Charles Martin Smith directed. Watchable as a family, and solid for anyone who likes animal films. For anyone put off by emotional steering, the film hides nothing about what it wants, and the score announces the feeling in every scene.