Director: Chris Weitz
Writer: Chris Weitz based on the novel by Philip Pullman
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Richards, Eva Green, Ian McKellen, Sam Elliott, Christopher Lee
The Golden Compass is an adaptation of the first of Philip Pullman’s trilogy of fantasy novels collectively known as His Dark Materials. The book was originally published in the UK as Northern Lights. The film jettisons some of the more complex and controversial aspects of the book, namely the role of religion, and instead concentrates on the journey of its young protagonist, Lyra, which takes her from the safety of a university campus, where she lives as the ward of an adventuring University Professor, to the frozen wastes of a fantasy Scandinavia populated by talking polar bears.
Reviewers and fans have drawn comparisons between The Golden Compass and other high brow fantasy series, namely LOTR and Narnia, but The Golden Compass cannot hope to achieve the same levels of success. LOTR plays with well established archetypes (Dwarves, Elves and manly heroes) that exist outside Tolkien’s universe, and which provide some context for viewers who are not already numbered among the books’ many fans. The Narnia books have been a staple of childhood reading for at least 3 generations and the first book (and film) at least contains enough familiar territory (a family escaping the blitz and the appearance of Father Christmas ) to give it some degree of broader appeal. The Golden Compass, however, has substantially more work to do in establishing not only the characters, but their context within an elaborate pseudo Victorian fantasy world. Perhaps wisely, the film makers simply show us the world and leave the viewers to accept and make sense of it in their own time. The obvious downside of this however, is that the characters can, and do, get lost amidst the spectacle.
The central premise of the film is that people in Lyra’s world have animal spirit forms, called daemons, which manifest outside their bodies. Children’s daemons are not fixed in their form and change from birds to mice to whatever, while adults’ daemons have a fixed form. These daemons connect people to a substance called ‘dust’, not the kind that gathers under the bed or on top of the bookshelves, but a magical substance that pervades the multi-verse, and which the Magisterium, a ruling oligarchy of clerics, believes is proof of the original sin.
The plot thread that takes Lyra on her journey of discovery follows on from two events. One is the disappearance of children from the town outside the University, the other is her guardian, Lord Asriel’s, discovery of a potential portal to another world somewhere near the North Pole and his capturing of the normally invisible Dust on film. Lord Asriel, played convincingly by Daniel Craig, sets off to return North, having secured funding for his expedition while Lyra’s friends, Billy and Roger, are kidnapped by the ‘Gobblers’ and Lyra herself is taken under the wing of a sinister Mrs Coulter, again well played by an ice cold Nicole Kidman. At this point Lyra is given the titular Golden Compass by the Dean of the University in the belief that she is one of the few people alive who can make use of it. Subsequently, Lyra escapes from Mrs Coulter and sets out to find her friends with the help of a group of Gyptians (a sort of gypsy underclass) many of whom have lost children themselves.
On her travels, Lyra learns how to use the Golden Compass, which seems to act as a sort of oracle. She also befriends the exiled Prince of a race of talking Polar Bears and Sam Elliot, who plays to type as a grizzled frontiersman; although this time he is a balloonist. The film ends after a reasonably satisfying denouement, but like Jackson’s Two Towers, it ends before the book, leaving a pivotal segment for the next movie.
The film as a whole seems to fall between its two audiences. Those who have read the book are likely to find the most interesting elements of the story to have been watered down, and those who haven’t are in danger of being overwhelmed by the combination of world building and plot mechanics. Sadly the result is that character development is left behind and the young actress who plays Lyra, Dakota Richards, doesn’t quite have the skill or charm to breathe life into the main character. Eva Green, who appears as a leader of a group of friendly witches, and Sam Elliot both play important roles in the plot but are hardly more than character sketches. Daniel Craig gives a short but decent performance as Lord Asriel, which leaves only Nicole Kidman, as Mrs Coulter, to shine. She manages to do more than say the lines, and brings a much needed complexity to what could have been a one dimensional character.
Overall the film is certainly spectacular, with some exciting battle sequences and moments of dramatic tension. It is however ironic that a film whose premise is the search for the human soul, should be so lacking in heart.
John Davidson Despite working in IT for the last 20 years and collecting comics for even longer, he is married, has two young daughters and lives in Scotland. Ideally he spends his spare time reading and watching movies, but this is curtailed by the calls of child-rearing and part-time study, not to mention the 'call of the internet'.