With a mess of curls framing the cheeky smile almost permanently plastered on his face, 10-year-old Percy "Boy" Collins (Bundjalung primary schooler Lennox Monaghan) is the beating heart of this affecting story about family, friendship and the trials and tribulations of an atypical childhood.
From the very first scene, we see Percy Boy enveloped in the love of an unconventional family unit that resists narrow definitions of kinship: He lives with his pop (an outstanding Kelton Pell), his Aunty Cressida (Jessica Mauboy, returning to feature films for the first time since 2012's The Sapphires) and Aunty Prue (Lisa Maza of Wentworth).
Where Percy Boy's parents are is a mystery until later in the film. But whenever things feel tough, he sits in their old family car, talking to them as though they were right there with him.
A star-studded cast of neighbourhood locals further buoy Percy Boy in his journey of discovery. Ngali Shaw (The Twelve) features as well-meaning Constable Kennedy, his kindness a corrective to the violence often meted out by police on First Nations children, although this is never quite interrogated. With a catchphrase of "a bit of shush", Pia Miranda plays a bit part as Percy Boy's teacher, while Jessica McNamee is the town's firefighter.
Much of the film features a revelatory Monaghan in flight, as he runs back and forth between his obligations and his dreams.
Percy Boy forms a trio with fellow misfits Keithy Cobb (Max Turner), a plucky asthma sufferer whose inability to be without his puffer is outstripped by his courage, and Daisy Hawkins (Coco Greenstone), a straight-talking, no-nonsense junior who makes up for her lack of height with sheer grit. The three of them unite around Percy Boy's dream to win the 200-metre sprint at their upcoming sports carnival – which would have been easy if his old sneakers hadn't given way.
To say Windcatcher is a feel-good film is not to say that everything is hunky dory. Signs of financial distress are everywhere in Percy Boy's life, from the overdue electricity bill pinned on his fridge to his family's inability to buy him a new pair of shoes.
Percy Boy is a carer of sorts for his rapidly deteriorating Aunt Prue, while the gaping hole of his parents' absence widens further when he loses someone else close to him. The threat of his bullies is surpassed by his post-traumatic stress in response to bushfires — whether in speech or actuality.
That Monaghan can balance the range of these emotions is testament to the young actor's dexterity, aided by the impressive young supporting cast of Turner and Greenstone.
But, for the most part, the utopia of Windcatcher is a small Australian country town in the 90s – where minimally supervised children stay up late watching SBS movies and run around carefree with an unfettered sense of abandon. A $20 note has the power to make dreams happen. The addictive glow of screens is supplanted by misadventures in mineshafts, scrap yards, hand-cobbled lemonade stands and riverbanks.
Saturated with colour and backdropped by jaunty tunes, the world Percy Boy inhabits with his two peers is one flush with possibilities and wonder.
Fantastical elements imbue Windcatcher, notably in Percy Boy's inherited ability to see and commune with spirits. His fear of them is in many ways indicative of his fear of the ghosts in his own life; his inability to relinquish a sense of misplaced responsibility for that which he had no control over.
Going by the moniker "Boy", it's hard not to draw parallels between Windcatcher and Taika Waititi's 2010 film Boy, though the former doesn't have the same dark undercurrent of parental neglect that pervaded the latter, which lent it a starker feel. Tonally more like Waititi's follow-up film Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Windcatcher leans into humour and doesn't interrogate the thornier aspects of what's being depicted on screen.
But maybe that's OK. Perhaps it's more than OK. Stories of young Aboriginal boys being proud of their cultural identities and flourishing in their communities aren't commonplace on our big screens. But as Monaghan – didgeridoo player, dancer, captain of his primary school and much-loved member of his local community – shows, it's not an impossibility and nor should it be regarded as one.