For our anniversary yesterday, Marcia and I headed out to the movies and saw “Stardust”, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman.
From Fandango’s site, here is a description of the plot:
To win the heart of Victoria (Sienna Miller), a beautiful but cold object of his desire, a young man named Tristan (Charlie Cox) ventures into the realm of fairies to retrieve a fallen star. What Tristan finds, however, is not a chunk of space rock, but a striking girl named Yvaine (Claire Danes). However, Tristan is not the only one seeking the star. A king’s four sons need the star as they vie for the throne. Tristan must also overcome the evil witch Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer), who needs the star to achieve eternal beauty. As Tristan sets out to protect the star and bring her back to his beloved, his journey will bring unforeseen romance, highflying adventure, and incredible encounters with a pirate captain (Robert De Niro), a shady trader (Ricky Gervais), and an enchanted unicorn among other surprises. But if he can survive on his wits and the strength of his newfound love, Tristan will also uncover the secret to his own identity, and a fate beyond his wildest dreams.
I read the book about five or six years ago and love it. However, when seeing the movie, all the minor details didn’t come to mind very easily. I am not exactly sure what was added, what was subtracted, what was different, and what followed the book to a tee. I do know that overall, I really enjoyed the movie. I feel that the movie paid much respect to the book. I know of a couple of moments that were changed, but that was for “Hollywood” sake and expected that.
To concentrate solely on the movie, Marcia and I have been talking a lot about De Niro the last couple of weeks, and we were both impressed with his performance, though he doesn’t have a lot of screen time. He keeps proving that he is probably the most versital actor in the biz. I though Claire Danes was a great choice to play Yvaine, and she even brought the character’s aloofness down a notch which made the character that more enjoyable. Michelle Pfeiffer is proving that as she gets older she becomes a more respected actress. She added to the whole casts’ very respectable performances.
In some ways, after discussing this briefly via email with my brother-in-law David (a big fan of Gaiman’s work), I wanted to re-read the book before. But I think I may have done myself a favor by not re-reading it. I found myself enjoying the movie more for itself then comparing it to the book. Other then those couple of “Hollywood” moments that I expected, I found nothing about the movie that I didn’t like. The pacing was very good (as is the book). The characters were all well done, even given more of a human feel to them (like Yvaine). I also thought that Mark Strong was very good as Septimus, though after seeing the cast list expected Rupert Evert to be playing him (he played Secundus). And the presentation, including a bit of narration from Ian McKellen, was wonderful. I really thought it all came together well.
The very stern Gaiman fans might have issues with the book, but regardless of what the comparisons are, the movie is genuinely wonderful.
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