IN 2010, Dutch 14-year-old Laura Dekker defied the legal challenges of local authorities and set out to become the youngest person ever to sail around the world alone. It’s a testament to her nautical skills and remarkable self-possession that she pulled it off without any major hitches.
It also doesn’t make for what we expect in the narrative of a documentary — when does the big crisis come, I kept wondering — but that doesn’t make her story, most of it filmed by Dekker on her solo journey, less compelling. What the film lacks in plot twists it makes up for in sheer amazement, such as one scene in which Dekker, in green night-vision, sways to Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration” while closing in on the equator in her 40-foot vessel, Guppy.
First-time director Jillian Schlesinger intersperses Dekker’s footage with an animated map showing her course and mileage across the oceans, as well as vignettes from her stops in various countries. The result is a unique and quietly wonderful ode to doing your own thing, no matter who tries to stop you.