Trailer
Plot summary
A seal dies in a net set by Billy Baker, a fisherman in Rockport, Maine, whose season is going badly, and he and the other fishermen discuss shooting the seals. Toni Whitney, who is seven, and her family take in the dead seal's newborn pup and name him Andre. A vet holds out little hope for the pup, so Toni's father Harry, the harbor master, fashions an artificial mother from a wetsuit, a bucket and feeding bottles, and the pup finally accepts it. Andre grows attached to Toni, lives in the harbor, learns tricks and draws crowds of fans, and Billy's resentment of the family deepens.
Cast
- Aidan Pendletonas Paula Whitney
- Shirley Broderickas Mrs. McCann
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Andre (1994)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Despite the title character being a seal, he was actually played on screen by a sea lion named Tory.
- The real Andre spent every winter at the New England Aquarium in Boston and swam back up to Rockport on his own each spring, entertaining tourists there every summer until his death in the spring of 1986.
- Charges over illegally keeping a wild animal were quickly dropped because Andre had been kept before the law came into play; it was demonstrably his own intention to come home and to remain with the family.
- The film's angry fisherman antagonist is a fictional composite; the source book instead describes one real fisherman who wanted to shoot Andre but was talked out of it.
