Jessica Watson

Jessica Watson's solo sailing trip around the world when she was just 16 inspired the nation. Now a film about her incredible journey has come to Netflix.

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“With the support of her sailing coach and mentor Ben Bryant (Cliff Curtis) and her parents (Josh Lawson and Academy Award winner Anna Paquin), Jessica is ...

So I was able to bring a level of authenticity that I wouldn’t have been able to without lockdown and isolation. And so, putting some of myself into there, I was really lucky that it was Covid and didn’t see my family so I had a kind of similar emotional experience to Jess, in that time. Teagan Croft: I think so. Jessica Watson: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s so weird for them, right? I think it really hit home when I came to the studios in pre-production and there were walls and walls of rooms covered in inspiration of my life. I’m so glad that I was drawn to it.

It is 2009, and a young Australian teen, Jessica Watson, already an avid sailor at 16 years old, has pledged to sail around the world—solo.

Eventually, the wind comes back, and she is on her way again. Jessica talks to Ben and her family, who implore her to do the safer thing, which is to give up and find a port. This gives her the dose of courage she needs, and she decides to continue with her dream. She remembers why she is doing this and gets her act together. She stops answering her family’s calls and struggles to do her daily tasks. Adding to the already obvious peril set before her is Jessica’s dyslexia.

Based on a true story, the Netflix film "True Spirit" tells the story of Jessica Watson, an Australian teenager who fought against all odds to fulfill her.

But the fact that she did what she did anyway is still admirable. It is not the movie’s fault that the person it is based on was 16 years old. The next day, Jessica calls her family to tell them that she is alright, and that Pink (the boat’s name) saved her. Thinking of a child as a child is not the fault of adults; it is their responsibility. What she is referring to is the true spirit of perseverance that helps people find out who they really are. She comes very close to her destination, but it is then that she has to face her biggest challenge. She is unable to do anything as the boat capsizes and goes down into the water. When Jessica tells him that she is big and strong enough to do what she wants, he tells her that she need not prove anything to him. But that is the thing about ambition and adventure: they don’t run on common sense; they run on a desire to prove something, not just to the world but also to themselves. While Jessica cannot control a cargo ship that is off course, she had forgotten to turn on her alarms because she fell asleep. She finds that her father has packed a lot of frozen broccoli and vegetables for her trip. They probably thought it was a flight of fancy, but a few years later, Jessica was ready to sail the world.