Movie Review: Inkheart
Jan. 25th, 2009 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjAmong various other runnings around this afternoon, I paused to see Inkheart, a fantasy movie that begins with the premise "what if there are people in the world who can bring a story literally to life by reading it out loud?" It's evidently the same basic premise as the recent Bedtime Stories, which I felt no impulse to see because Adam Sandler generally leaves me cold. I had two impressions coming into this movie. One was based on having seen a trailer for Inkheart about half a year or so ago that emphasized glimpses of characters and creatures conjured up from various works of classic children's literature. My thought at the time was, "Cool premise, but is the target audience going to have read those books and get it?" The second impression came from an assortment of reviews that generally found the movie less than exciting.
Well, both impressions were off the mark. I loved this movie. Unlike the impression left by that long-ago trailer, it wasn't a classic literature trivia quiz. And those reviewers? I have no idea what sort of "tedious drawn-out exposition" they're talking about. I got hooked on the premise immediately, cared deeply about all the protagonists -- even some of the fairly minor characters -- and found the structure of both the problem and solution to be both believable (within the context of the premise) and satisfactory. Maybe that's because I'm a writer and a book geek. This is definitely a story about writers and storytellers and book geeks. There's even some concrete examples of the old saw about characters taking charge of the story. So you have these magical storytellers (called "silvertongues" in the story) who make aspects of any story they tell appear in our world. But there's a price -- an involuntary exchange of something from our world into the story. There some implication that skill or practice can lend a bit more control over this aspect, but Our Hero doesn't have it -- while reading a dark, medievalesque fantasy novel titled Inkheart, he brings a few characters from the story (including the main villain) into our world ... in exchange for his wife. As the movie opens, he and his teenage daughter are searching through Europe for another copy of the novel so he can read things back right again. Adventures, threats, blackmailing, eccentric aunts, fire-jugglers, and one large (and evidently intelligent) weasel complicate the issue before a dramatic resolution.
There was only one thread that I felt was left hanging. And this is where the main spoiler comes in. So it turns out the teenage daughter is also a "silvertongue" and there's a clear implication of the talent running in families. But another theme that we keep running into is that the mother (who is not simply a lost macguffin) is a talented artist -- her sketches, especially of the other main characters, create a strong thread running through the story. So I kept expect her to turn out to be the graphic equivalent of a silvertongue, i.e., someone who could draw fiction into existence. I kept feeling like the groundwork was being laid for that twist and then it was never realized. Well, maybe there'll be a sequel.
Great movie. I recommend it.
Well, both impressions were off the mark. I loved this movie. Unlike the impression left by that long-ago trailer, it wasn't a classic literature trivia quiz. And those reviewers? I have no idea what sort of "tedious drawn-out exposition" they're talking about. I got hooked on the premise immediately, cared deeply about all the protagonists -- even some of the fairly minor characters -- and found the structure of both the problem and solution to be both believable (within the context of the premise) and satisfactory. Maybe that's because I'm a writer and a book geek. This is definitely a story about writers and storytellers and book geeks. There's even some concrete examples of the old saw about characters taking charge of the story. So you have these magical storytellers (called "silvertongues" in the story) who make aspects of any story they tell appear in our world. But there's a price -- an involuntary exchange of something from our world into the story. There some implication that skill or practice can lend a bit more control over this aspect, but Our Hero doesn't have it -- while reading a dark, medievalesque fantasy novel titled Inkheart, he brings a few characters from the story (including the main villain) into our world ... in exchange for his wife. As the movie opens, he and his teenage daughter are searching through Europe for another copy of the novel so he can read things back right again. Adventures, threats, blackmailing, eccentric aunts, fire-jugglers, and one large (and evidently intelligent) weasel complicate the issue before a dramatic resolution.
There was only one thread that I felt was left hanging. And this is where the main spoiler comes in. So it turns out the teenage daughter is also a "silvertongue" and there's a clear implication of the talent running in families. But another theme that we keep running into is that the mother (who is not simply a lost macguffin) is a talented artist -- her sketches, especially of the other main characters, create a strong thread running through the story. So I kept expect her to turn out to be the graphic equivalent of a silvertongue, i.e., someone who could draw fiction into existence. I kept feeling like the groundwork was being laid for that twist and then it was never realized. Well, maybe there'll be a sequel.
Great movie. I recommend it.
