hidden gem: the secret of moonacre

We stumbled across a little gem of a movie the other day, The Secret of Moonacre. A true fantasy film, The Secret of Moonacre begins like a classic children's story along the lines of The Little Princess and then takes some magicl twists and turns a la The Wizard of Oz.

Based on the book The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge, the story begins when 13 year-old homeless orphan Maria Merryweather (Dakota Blue Richards, The Golden Compass) must leave London to live with her handsome but Rochester-like Uncle Benjamin (Ioan Gruffudd) in the picturesque but crumbling Moonacre Manor. The movie was filmed in Hungary, and the sets, costumes and locations are fabulous to look at. Director Gabor Csupo (Bridge to Terabithia) revels in all of the colorful surfaces and details, and the viewer will, too.

There is a family feud between the Merryweathers and their neighbors on the other side of the forest, the De Noirs. There are star-crossed lovers and a black lion and a Moon Princess who has cursed both families unless someone pure of heart can break the curse before the 5000th moon rises. Maria must sort through her family history and magic and mythology to get to the truth.

Maria checks out her new digs

Robin and Maria form an uneasy truce

Loveday shows Maria her fabulous underground lair

This all may sound a bit silly, and the movie can be just that at times, but with purpose and good humor. Juliet Stevenson has a blast as Maria's mostly useless guardian and companion, Miss Heliotrope, as does Andy Linden as the magical Chef Marmaduke Scarlet. Tim Curry could play the villain of the piece, Coeur De Noir, in his sleep, but he does it with a wink and makes the character more fun. Augustus Prew channels Clockwork Orange's Droogs for his bad-boy Robin De Noir, who may not be so bad after all. And Natascha McElhone is both lovely and wacky as Loveday, Benjamin's former fiancee.

Lately we seem to be seeing movies that we like which lead us to the books they were based upon, instead of the usual, other way around. After seeing and enjoying The Secret of Moonacre I definitely would like to read The Little White Horse with my daughter. It will be interesting to see if the sumptuous visuals from the film carry over as we read, or if we become entranced with the words and imagine a whole new set of images and characters.

underground

I just finished Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. I enjoyed it. What really struck me, as I read it, were all the "links" I could make. Some placed within the novel by Gaiman, some brought to the experience of reading by the particular reader, me.

Neverwhere tells the story of an everyman, Richard Mayhew, who is swept into another world beneath the streets of London, called London Below. This other London is peopled by those who have fallen through the cracks of our world, as well as some fanciful and pretty horrible characters, and also ones with otherworldly powers. I enjoyed the character and in-joke of the Marquis of Carabas and was concerned about his fate, maybe more than any other character in the story. Not that I didn't like Richard, but the Marquis was more engaging. But that's true of the Wizard of Oz (film), too, which is numerously referenced in Neverwhere. Everyone has a favorite character from that classic film. Mine was and still is the Tin Man, although I think the most intrepid member of Dorothy's crew may well have been Toto. Richard, like Dorothy, spends much of his time wanting to go back home. In this upside-down fairy tale he gets his wish and then gets to change his mind. What I found most intriguing about Richard was that even though he has completely lost his identity in the London he knows and has become a walking metaphor of the homeless, faceless poor that try to live off the city streets with all-too-short a life, he never completely loses touch with who he is. No matter who he runs across in the strange societies of London Below, he never hesitates to introduce himself, with his full name, "I'm Richard Mayhew." Maybe he's just more polite than my fellow Americans, but I was impressed.

Another interesting aspect of Neverwhere is the idea of youth, and growing up. One could read the story of Richard's adventures in London Below as his maturation process. But I also saw it as a depiction of what it's like to be young in the city. City life and youth itself can be exciting, dirty, scary, sexy, even life-threatening. If Richard chose to return to his (our) normal world, he could always look back on his time with the Marquis and Door and the others as his wild youth, much like many of us have dim but pleasant memories of our own youthful escapades.

While reading Neverwhere I experienced echoes of other books I have recently read and enjoyed. As each step of Richard's journey took him closer to somewhere or someone even stranger or more dangerous than the last, reading can take you on a larger journey, from book to book, weaving a common thread through different stories. A few months back I read Rune by Christopher Fowler, whose Bryant and May mystery series I enjoy. Like Neverwhere, Rune is set in London with a male protagonist who doesn't yet realize he might like to break free from his relationship with a perfect woman who isn't perfect for him. An interesting yet offbeat young woman comes into his life and the story is off and running. More a horror story than fantasy, Rune still makes for a good read. In fact my only quibble with both books is that there is a lot, maybe too much, flowing blood. As good as both of these writers are, I was wondering how horrible Neverwhere's Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar could still have been without the need to be overly descriptive of half-eaten kittens and the like.

I also recently finished Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, with the wonderful female protagonist Lyra Silvertongue. These books start out in an alternate Oxford and then take off for worlds familiar and imaginary. I can't say enough about this great series of books, except that I look forward to my daughter being old enough to enjoy them. In the meantime I will most likely be reaching for Gaiman's latest and see where the book will take me and what other books and worlds I may discover on the way.