Neil Gaiman, the author of Stardust, Anansi Boys, Neverwhere and Coraline (among other fine novels) is a highly imaginative writer. His dominant genre is fantasy, though he’s something of a black sheep in that realm. If you peruse a cross-section of fantasy novels, you’ll find that the standard goal is the imitation of JRR Tolkien: fantasy novelists are always busying themselves with the creation of entire foreign worlds complete with their own histories, languages, and sociopolitical structures. Gaiman doesn’t bother with most of that, or at least not as strenuously. He drops the fantastical -- delicately or forcefully -- into the daily mundane. Or maybe it’s the other way around: there’s more than a little of Alice in Wonderland in the way his adventurers come from our own approximated world but fall down the rabbit hole into another.
In Stardust the role of Alice will be played by Tristan (Charlie Cox). Tristan lives in a village named Wall and unlike Alice, he’s aware of his Wonderland. There’s a fantastical world called Stormhold bordering his town—the entrance is a hole in the wall, which is continually guarded. No one is allowed in. One impulsive night this young man vows to his unrequited love Victoria (Sienna Miller) that he’ll bring her the falling star she spots in the sky in exchange for her hand. Victoria, amused and annoyed, humors his absurd proposition and Tristran sets out on his adventure. Unfortunately he’s not the only seeker of that ball of light. Two other uncharitable types are after it. There’s a ruthless prince (Mark Strong) who needs it to obtain the throne and a wicked witch named Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) who wants to devour it.
Gaiman’s delightful and scary page-turner has been adapted for the screen by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake), the latter of whom also directs. In blueprint form some of their transfer decisions pay off well: The kingdom of Stormhold is no longer known to the inhabitants of Wall (in the book they could cross over for a semi annual magical market). This ups the ante when Tristran makes his first daring leap into the unknown. The prologue, a necessary back-story bit, is also dispatched with quickly – there are a lot of story beats to hit. The book’s satisfying but low-key finale has also been re-imagined into far more traditional movie form. Rule #1 of action screenwriting: your villain and hero must have a showdown at the climax. You can’t exactly fault the filmmakers for this major reworking: odd resolutions are fine in a book which has witty prose and characters as its selling point. A movie like this needs a set-piece.
So, in blueprint form, Stardust works. Wicked witches, chases on horseback, evil monarchs, damsels in distress, magical kingdoms – these are all cinematic tropes as well as literary ones. But sadly, Stardust is unmagical in execution: it’s lead-footed when it needs to be light, overly literal when it should leave room for your imagination, and pandering to the thickest heads in the theater. Though hardly unique to Stardust, the audience handholding is clammy and unwelcome. Early in the film Lamia curses another lesser witch who she fears might beat her to the fallen star: all of this particular witch’s senses will fail her if the star is in her presence. She will never recognize it. When the cursed witch does meet the fallen star (Claire Danes) the curse dialogue is replayed on the soundtrack in case you forgot it. You’re also seeing the witch’s senses fail her. The exasperation only mounts: once you’ve been reminded in words and visuals, there’s further dialogue from the star as she figures it out for herself and for the audience again, 'am I correct that you can neither see, hear nor touch me?'
Stardust is riddled with other momentum and overkill problems: every scene of movement, be it in carriages, on horseback or pirate ship or running on foot, and every spell cast comes with thunderous music scores indicating BIG MOMENT HERE when sometimes these moments are merely transitional. By the time we do need the crescendo (the finale) it plays too much like every other scene preceding it. The movie is so poorly directed that it’s a head-scratcher to reflect back on the taut suspense and wonderful staging in Matthew Vaughn’s previous film Layer Cake. What happened?
Perhaps he was just the wrong director for the material. A further glimpse at how the project got away from him can be seen in the performances of its three biggest stars: they don’t seem directed at all. Claire Danes is oppressively fidgety (even though she’s playing a celestial body, which you would think would call for some modulation from her standard work). Robert DeNiro is winky and pandering (he’s allowed to roam entirely free, completely taking you out of the movie. My vote for the most obnoxious performance this year). Michelle Pfeiffer is brilliant (yes: that’s her default mode).
On this last matter a word to all directors: If you’re unable to direct your film, by all means cast actors who don’t need you and in roles that suit them well. Michelle Pfeiffer’s every move as Lamia is accompanied by obtrusive and very green CGI but it’s easy to imagine her swatting these pyrotechnics aside as she storms through her scenes. This woman doesn’t need any help from the visual effects department. Pfeiffer is always at her best when her films demand an un-timid take on a centerpiece character [see my writings on Batman Returns, Fabulous Baker Boys, White Oleander for further examples] and she doesn’t disappoint as an ancient, vain and evil witch. A few of her line readings seem ham-fisted until you realize that Lamia is a bad actress herself and Pfeiffer isn’t disguising it. This is a witty, bold, and even erotic star turn: watch the creepy way she hovers about the fallen star offering a massage (what?) or the way her hips swivel in long shot when young Tristran approaches with sword in hand. Stardust is so wobbly that you can feel it clinging to her fire and stylistic skill with total transparent devotion. Lamia isn’t exactly a new or great role but the actor’s performance nearly saves the movie. At the very least it offers up a better movie to imagine through the disappointment.
If all’s well that ends well, though, Vaughn deserves some credit. The final set-piece is terrific. This last battle (an invention for the movie) in which prince, witch, and hero collide is intense and frightening stuff and somehow it’s almost entirely devoid of the previously oppressive CGI. Shattering glass and sword fights are just scarier than green blobs of energy. They just are. It bears noting --and I hope that other filmmakers and studios can see it too -- that the best special effect in the entire movie isn’t a special effect at all: It’s Michelle Pfeiffer holding up a voodoo doll. It totally seizes you. The moment and its afterlife are so exciting and scary and inventive (all adjectives that can also describe the book) that I’m at a complete loss to figure out how this same filmmaking team felt they needed to treat the other sequences with such overkill, piling on loads of unnecessary and generic visual effects.
In Alice in Wonderland, the heroine shrinks and grows at the mercy of magical potions. In Stardust the novel, Gaiman’s skillful play with fairy tale tropes shrinks things down to their most amusing or frightening essence but expands the imagination. The movie is, unfortunately only a shrinking of a totally engaging novel. Those readers anxious to see Pfeiffer work her magic should run to the theaters but be forewarned that her fire upsets the balance of a clumsy enterprise. It’s rather like rooting for the Queen of Hearts in a film version of Wonderland. You might be shouting “Off with their heads!” to those who blew this golden opportunity.
