This Forgotten 90s Movie Will Make You Wanna Call Your Dad ASAP

I am a straight up sucker for dad-daughter movies—anything where a girl and her pop have to take on the world will surely bring me to tears. Maybe it's because I'm close with my dad, or maybe it's just because I was a kid in the 90s. Remember the decade where all young heroines seemed to have lost their mothers in tragic accidents and were left to build strong bonds with their bumbling fathers? "My Girl" immediately comes to mind, along with pretty much every Mary Kate & Ashley adventure and Disney princess movie ever made. 

Among such steep competition, one movie that sticks out in my heart is the oft-forgotten 1996 gem "Fly Away Home," starring Anna Paquin and Jeff Daniels (hello, dream team!) as a dad-daughter duo who team up to train a bunch of geese to fly south for the winter. I recently rewatched this movie as a grown-up woman and I gotta tell you, it holds up. In addition to realizing some parenting lessons I missed as a kid, the movie made me wanna call my dad and say thanks for teaching me how to fly into adulthood. Here's why you'll be scheduling a movie night with your pa pronto:

Since his wife's death, Tom has been living alone in a messy house full of gadgets and half-finished metal sculptures of dragons.

After her mom dies in a tragic car accident (see?!), Amy has to move back into the house she hasn't lived in since she was three. In classic single dad fashion, Tom left his daughter's unused bed in perfect fashion while using the rest of the room for storage. He tries his best to parent, but his dinners of peanut butter and spaghetti sauce don't make Amy feel at home.

While Amy was being raised by her mother in New Zealand, her dad was busy in his workshop making space-age refrigerators and exact replicas of the lunar lander. 

Amy nails the "and who are you?" face reserved for parents' new partners.

Construction near her their rural home destroys the habitats of Canadian Geese. When Amy finds some motherless chicks, she takes them under her wing. 

Once the geese have imprinted on Amy as their mother, she and her dad decide to raise them as part of their family. They follow Amy everywhere, and with a little effort, they follow Tom too.

The local game warden warns them that without a natural mother to guide them, these geese may not be able to fly south for the winter. 

"What happens when they want to migrate?” he asks, "They’re gonna try to fly away eventually, that’s what they do." 

Man, what a great metaphor for parenting.

Tom, the rogue inventor, designs a lightweight flying contraption for them to guide the geese on their southward migration. Because the aircrafts can only carry one person, the plan is for Amy to follow Tom and for the birds to follow Amy. In a heartwarming montage, Tom teaches his daughter how to fly all by herself.

When Tom's aircraft goes down in a cornfield, Amy has to finish the journey alone. 

Amy: “I can’t find my way without you.”

Dad: “Yes you can.” 

OMG I'M CRYING.

Not to spoil a 20-year-old movie for you, but Amy successfully leads the geese to their winter home. And in the spring, they return home to her and her dad.

Amy may have been scared, she may not have thought she could make it on her own, but her dad all but pushed her out of the nest because he knew she could do it. He believed in her.

“You take those geese, you take that plane, and you fly away, Amy.”

NOW YOU'RE CRYING!