Director: Ant Timpson
An eleven-year-old bookworm and the washed-up magician father she barely knows end up chasing a legendary beast through the New Zealand wilderness in this offbeat family adventure.
What is Bookworm about?
Mildred is eleven, bookish, and used to relying on herself, so when her estranged father Strawn Wise shows up to look after her, the arrangement is awkward from the start. He is a magician whose career peaked long ago, and she has little patience for tricks or excuses about the years he was absent. What breaks the ice is a shared goal neither of them expected: heading into the bush together to track down the Canterbury Panther, a creature that exists mostly in local legend and campfire stories. Framed as a rugged camping trip, the search becomes the space where the two slowly figure out how to be father and daughter, trading sarcasm for something closer to trust as the terrain gets harder and the mystery of the panther gets stranger. "Bookworm" leans into deadpan comedy and genuine warmth in equal measure, using the hunt for a possibly-fictional monster as the backdrop for a much more grounded story about reconnection.
Cast & crew
Elijah Wood plays Strawn Wise opposite Nell Fisher as Mildred, with Michael Smiley, Vanessa Stacey, Morgana O'Reilly, Millen Baird, Nikki Si'ulepa, and Theo Shakes filling out the supporting cast.
Context & significance
"Bookworm" is a 2024 New Zealand production running 103 minutes, mixing adventure, comedy, and drama in a way that recalls classic backwoods family films while keeping its own dry, regional humor. It carries an IMDb rating of 6.0, reflecting solid word-of-mouth as a low-key crowd-pleaser rather than a major award contender.
Where & how to watch
K-Time offers "Bookworm" with both Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, making it accessible for family viewing in Farsi. Anyone can read this page without signing in, but watching the film requires logging into a free K-Time account first. The platform's Farsi-language interface is built for the Iranian diaspora, so navigation and search feel native throughout.