The Golden Compass is based on a book originally published in 1995 under the title Northern Lights. Being that I have never read the book, I will not attempt to make any comparisons between its plot and that of The Lord of the Rings, published four decades earlier. However, the film adaptation of The Golden Compass bears some noticeable similarities to the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.
In The Golden Compass, a young girl, Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards), must undertake a perilous journey to transport an alethiometer (an object that resembles a compass) to a mysterious land. The alethiometer possesses great power and poses a fantastic threat to those who wish to control the world in which Lyra was raised. Over the course of her travels, as she is joined by a small, ragtag army of supporters, Lyra must protect the compass from her manipulative foes. Basically, an innocent, diminutive character tries to keep a round, golden object from falling into the wrong hands. There is also an ethereal voice-over giving us background information at the start of the film and a grandiose CGI battle scene toward the end. Christopher Lee even makes an appearance as an evil wizard-like High Councilor.
That being said, The Golden Compass is far more enamoring than the first Tolkien installment. The characters are much more detailed and engaging, the fantasy world is much more polished, and the high adventure is much more refreshing. This isn’t, of course, to say that I disliked The Lord of the Rings, but despite initial parallels between the franchises, The Golden Compass establishes itself as an exciting and fresh newcomer to the current multitude of fantasy series.
Adapted from the first of a trilogy of novels by Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass chronicles Lyra’s mission not only to protect the alethiometer, but also to free kidnapped children from the nightmarish Gobblers, who have taken some of her own friends. Clues regarding their whereabouts lead her to the arctic land of the North, where a strange phenomenon is occurring. In Lyra’s universe, the souls of people walk alongside them in the form of animals called daemons. In the North, Dust, which flows from the sky and resembles the Aurora Borealis, seems to form a connection to other universes (some like our own in which people’s souls dwell inside the body). While Lyra’s uncle, Lord Asriel (Daniel Craig) seeks to study the Dust, others want to cover up its existence, a key factor of which seems to be destroying Lyra’s alethiometer.
While the issue of the missing children is resolved, questions about Dust, the alethiometer, and a prophecy regarding Lyra (akin to that of the subsequently written Harry Potter stories) propel the film toward its sequel.
The Golden Compass is a great movie, but is not as aimed toward children as audiences might expect. Although there is no shortage of cute, playful daemons and the main character is a child, most of the film’s plot is quite sophisticated and may be hard for younger viewers to follow. Also, some scenes of surprising violence boost the movie’s rating to PG-13.
A highlight in the film is the acting of thirteen-year-old Dakota Blue Richards, who is much more believable than the other, more well-known Dakota. Since the story centers on the character of Lyra, it is a testament to Richards’ talent that the film succeeds. Alongside her are Nicole Kidman, an appropriate choice for the menacingly refined Mrs. Coulter, and Sam Elliott, reprising his role as a shrewd cowboy in Lee Scoresby. Providing voices for the daemons are Ian McKellen, Kathy Bates, and Freddie Highmore.
The Golden Compass is part of a fantasy trilogy, but it surpasses its contemporaries in the strength of its plot, the development of its characters, the talent of its actors, and its ability excite viewers about its sequel. If the familiar story of a brave child battling powerful unseen evils is to be adapted to film, there has, as of yet, been no better attempt than this.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Review of Margot at the Wedding
Margot at the Wedding is, I would say, a comedy with an all-star cast including Jack Black and John Turturro. This is probably the only way I can make this film sound in the least bit good because in actuality, Margot at the Wedding is a laughably bad drama, still featuring Jack Black and John Turturro.
The movie starts out endearingly enough, introducing a slew of dysfunctional family members gathering to celebrate Pauline’s (Jennifer Jason Leigh) upcoming marriage to Malcolm (Jack Black). Pauline’s sister, Margot (Nicole Kidman), arrives by train with her adolescent son, Claude (Zane Pais), despite a spell of silence and tension between the sisters. A possibly gay couple with a possibly autistic son also makes a probably irrelevant appearance, as does Pauline’s daughter, Ingrid (Flora Cross), who doesn’t really do anything except have a dog and then call for it when it gets lost. If the character’s names don’t already supply you with enough pretension to last a few years at Cannes, the rest of the movie certainly will.
If there is any real plot involved in Margot at the Wedding, it never goes anywhere. Pauline is pregnant and she hasn’t told Malcolm, but then he finds out anyway and nothing happens. Margot and her husband, Jim (John Turturro, in a five-minute appearance), are having problems in their relationship and Margot is having an affair with a guy named Dick (Ciarán Hinds) but nothing ends up happening. There is even a feud between Pauline’s family and some menacing next-door neighbors who seem bizarrely plucked from Deliverance (complete with lines like, “Are you a queer?”), but nothing ever comes of it. The whole movie seems like a set-up for something that never happens. The subplots simply dissolve, and Margot at the Wedding comes off as a home video filmed with an expensive camera.
Adding to the film’s unpleasantness is the continuously emphasized personality of the main character, Margot, who has not one likeable trait. She is outspoken, tactless, and embarrassing to her family. She is overly dependent upon her son, Claude, and uses him as a means of support for her frequent emotional swings and concerns about family secrets. She also insults him and calls him a baby when he doesn’t want to leave her. There could have been a more defined psychological interplay between Margot and Claude, but apparently because of other aspirations for the film, Margot’s feelings are summed up in a ten second synopsis of a book she has written. Besides being a bad mother, Margot is also an awful wife, cheating on her husband and blaming him for her emotional problems, though he is endlessly kind to her. Margot is not the only unlikable character in the movie; Malcolm is shown to be distasteful as well, but at least he and the other characters are not totally devoid of relatable human responses.
Margot at the Wedding finally ends when Malcolm says something indistinguishable and Margot runs alongside a bus. Considering this should signify a wrap-up of conflicts previously presented in the movie but doesn’t come close to doing so, the film becomes not only tedious but also unsatisfying. Whatever message director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale) might have been trying to convey is lost among character flaws and Jack Black’s bad acting.
Margot at the Wedding is either trying too hard, or not trying hard enough. The quirky, affluent, almost bohemian family interacting in front of a windy, East Coast shoreline seems too artsy, too beautifully flawed, too tailored to the Oscars to really be taken as a genuine, inspired effort. The deficient storyline only confirms the lack of feeling in the making of the film and forces the audience to create its own connections between unrelated sequences of characters crying and yelling.
Somehow, even the most well-acted displays of emotion end up seeming inane or inappropriate. Pain seems awkward, anger seems pleasant, and sadness seems funny. Along with unexplained or strangely absent characters (like Pauline and Margot’s mother and sister, Becky, who show up only briefly across a street), badly integrated scenes and the lack of a story behind pretty much every situation introduced in the movie make it seem like Margot at the Wedding was haphazardly cropped down to its current 91 minute running time. Margot cries over a lost shoe but, unless she is more severely disturbed than the movie lets on, this gesture is confusing and nonsensical. The movie is smattered with similar references and reactions that have no basis and lead nowhere, further impairing the film’s chances at logical progression.
The acting in the movie is actually commendable, but again, with so many over-the-top sentiments, it is hard to appreciate. The only inadequate performance comes from Jack Black, who apparently never learned to display believable pain or sadness during his career as a comic. He does yell well once, but a response that strong from his character seems unwarranted and the value is therefore lost.
Margot at the Wedding is not worth seeing unless, maybe, you are a huge Nicole Kidman fan, but even then it still might not be worth it. With so much effort to be something great and so little success, the film is simply a disappointment and should only be interpreted as an uninspired waste of time or a humorously inept mistake.
The movie starts out endearingly enough, introducing a slew of dysfunctional family members gathering to celebrate Pauline’s (Jennifer Jason Leigh) upcoming marriage to Malcolm (Jack Black). Pauline’s sister, Margot (Nicole Kidman), arrives by train with her adolescent son, Claude (Zane Pais), despite a spell of silence and tension between the sisters. A possibly gay couple with a possibly autistic son also makes a probably irrelevant appearance, as does Pauline’s daughter, Ingrid (Flora Cross), who doesn’t really do anything except have a dog and then call for it when it gets lost. If the character’s names don’t already supply you with enough pretension to last a few years at Cannes, the rest of the movie certainly will.
If there is any real plot involved in Margot at the Wedding, it never goes anywhere. Pauline is pregnant and she hasn’t told Malcolm, but then he finds out anyway and nothing happens. Margot and her husband, Jim (John Turturro, in a five-minute appearance), are having problems in their relationship and Margot is having an affair with a guy named Dick (Ciarán Hinds) but nothing ends up happening. There is even a feud between Pauline’s family and some menacing next-door neighbors who seem bizarrely plucked from Deliverance (complete with lines like, “Are you a queer?”), but nothing ever comes of it. The whole movie seems like a set-up for something that never happens. The subplots simply dissolve, and Margot at the Wedding comes off as a home video filmed with an expensive camera.
Adding to the film’s unpleasantness is the continuously emphasized personality of the main character, Margot, who has not one likeable trait. She is outspoken, tactless, and embarrassing to her family. She is overly dependent upon her son, Claude, and uses him as a means of support for her frequent emotional swings and concerns about family secrets. She also insults him and calls him a baby when he doesn’t want to leave her. There could have been a more defined psychological interplay between Margot and Claude, but apparently because of other aspirations for the film, Margot’s feelings are summed up in a ten second synopsis of a book she has written. Besides being a bad mother, Margot is also an awful wife, cheating on her husband and blaming him for her emotional problems, though he is endlessly kind to her. Margot is not the only unlikable character in the movie; Malcolm is shown to be distasteful as well, but at least he and the other characters are not totally devoid of relatable human responses.
Margot at the Wedding finally ends when Malcolm says something indistinguishable and Margot runs alongside a bus. Considering this should signify a wrap-up of conflicts previously presented in the movie but doesn’t come close to doing so, the film becomes not only tedious but also unsatisfying. Whatever message director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale) might have been trying to convey is lost among character flaws and Jack Black’s bad acting.
Margot at the Wedding is either trying too hard, or not trying hard enough. The quirky, affluent, almost bohemian family interacting in front of a windy, East Coast shoreline seems too artsy, too beautifully flawed, too tailored to the Oscars to really be taken as a genuine, inspired effort. The deficient storyline only confirms the lack of feeling in the making of the film and forces the audience to create its own connections between unrelated sequences of characters crying and yelling.
Somehow, even the most well-acted displays of emotion end up seeming inane or inappropriate. Pain seems awkward, anger seems pleasant, and sadness seems funny. Along with unexplained or strangely absent characters (like Pauline and Margot’s mother and sister, Becky, who show up only briefly across a street), badly integrated scenes and the lack of a story behind pretty much every situation introduced in the movie make it seem like Margot at the Wedding was haphazardly cropped down to its current 91 minute running time. Margot cries over a lost shoe but, unless she is more severely disturbed than the movie lets on, this gesture is confusing and nonsensical. The movie is smattered with similar references and reactions that have no basis and lead nowhere, further impairing the film’s chances at logical progression.
The acting in the movie is actually commendable, but again, with so many over-the-top sentiments, it is hard to appreciate. The only inadequate performance comes from Jack Black, who apparently never learned to display believable pain or sadness during his career as a comic. He does yell well once, but a response that strong from his character seems unwarranted and the value is therefore lost.
Margot at the Wedding is not worth seeing unless, maybe, you are a huge Nicole Kidman fan, but even then it still might not be worth it. With so much effort to be something great and so little success, the film is simply a disappointment and should only be interpreted as an uninspired waste of time or a humorously inept mistake.
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