Running time: 95 minutes.

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THIS quality children's film is a savory antidote to the vast amount of junk made for kids that offer the instant high and brain food of a packet of Smarties.

Based on Katherine Peterson's book, it has a touch of CS Lewis, and in some ways resembles Pan Labyrinth for its canny balance of fantasy and reality.

Josh Hutcherson plays a boy who loses himself in his drawings.

At school he is bullied and at home feels isolated from his sisters and under-pressure parents. He sulks when new girl at school (AnnaSophia Robb) beats him in a race, but he soon discovers in her a great friend.

Together they explore Terabithia, a magicial kingdom they find in the woods; she also encourages him to stand up for himself. It is psychologically rich material, handled with intelligence by Rugrats animator Gabor Csupo, that also packs emotional punch.

It deals with issues such as bullying, bereavement and plain old pre-teen frustration but in a fashion that never gets in the way of a good story.

Fast Food Nation (Richard Linklater) Greg Kinnear, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Patricia Arquette, Paul Dano, Luis Guzman, Ethan Hawke, Kris Kristofferson Running time: 114 minutes.

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TAKE the raw ingredients of Eric Schlosser's best-selling book about US fast-food industry horrors, add a large pinch of Steven Soderbergh's cross-border ensemble drama Traffic and eh, voila: Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation.

Greg Kinnear plays a marketing executive sent to investigate why fecal matter is contaminating a fast-food giant's burgers; a bunch of young Mexicans cross the border illegally only to become exploited labour at the local meat-packing plant; while Ethan Hawke plays an uncle galvanising the conscience of his fast-food-worker niece.

Linklater, assuming we've all seen Supersize Me, avoids being preachy, instead opting for a satircal bent which lets his images do the talking: just when you think your stomach is going to settle, he takes us into the 'kill store' where you see live cows turned into burgers.