Zachary FenellStardust
January 22nd 2009 19:38
Stardust, 2007
As a Neil Gaiman fan, I am generally cautiously optimistic about movies adapted from his books. I enjoyed Stardust the book immensely and even had a signed copy at one point (until it grew legs and walked off some years ago). But I've also see the train-wreck of alleged Clive Barker films, and though we can forgive the BBC for Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (a great story overcomes dodgy production value), seeing such a beautiful novella molded to cinema was... well, let's just say I watched it alone the first time, just in case it was a disaster. I don't like people seeing me cry like that.
Much to my delight, there was nothing to be worried about.
Tristan (played by relative new-comer Charlie Cox) is an inadvertent hybrid of a fairy-land princess and a country bloke, but the fairy-tale side wins out when he finds himself traveling from our mundane world into the land of Stormhold. He's going to fetch a fallen star in order to win the love of a brat (love isn't blind, but infatuation with cleavage is), and finds out that the star is an actual person, Yvaine (played by Claire Danes). They try to make it back to Wall and encounter sky pirates (Robert De Niro), witches (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Mark Williams as a goat (you may know him as Mr. Weasley from the Harry Potter series).
Too often, when Hollywood gets their mitts on a fairy-tale, they turn it into a cloyingly sweet portrayal of their version of "true love" (which is most often poorly disguised codependency) or throw some ridiculously inaccurate ending that satisfies our resistance to the horror of reality (a la Enchanted, which I enjoyed but, let's face it, it was a Disney fairy tale). Stardust avoids that and manages to shine through with a moral we can hang onto and more than a few doses of really sage advice along the way (such as, "Don't talk to strangers who have no goats for their chariots already.")
I'm glad that the screenplay deviated from the book the way it did because that means that there are still treasures to be found in the pages, especially if you get the version illustrated by Charles Vess. There are some references to grown-up concepts, but most kids won't get it until their older and won't be traumatized in the meantime.
Also, count the Lawrence of Arabia references. The whole crew was delighted to get to work with Peter O'Toole.
5 Stars. Not only do I own it, but I watch it at least once a month. It's not mindless pap, but it's light enough to not add any brain-pounds.
5 Stars
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