Review: The Secret Of Moonacre

Feb 6 2009 by Barbara Hodgson, The Journal

OPENING, rather fittingly, with a funeral procession that sounds the death knell for the rest of the film, this is a gloomy tale of thwarted love, adapted from the children’s classic The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge.

There’s scant cheer in the screenplay, nor much in the way of magic or adventure.

Indeed, the only air of mystery surrounds why such lifeless material attracted esteemed talent in front of and behind the camera, including Hungarian director Gabor Csupo, whose live action debut Bridge To Terabithia was one of the finest family films of recent years. Alas, he’s unable to spark this turgid fairytale to life.

The darkness that settles over the picture’s fantastical setting – a valley living in the shadow of an ancient curse – is reflected in the cold, muted look.

Only in the flashbacks does colour radiate from the screen, but the fractured chronology proves frustrating.

The diminutive heroine is 13-year-old orphan Maria Merryweather (Dakota Blue Richards), who is forced to seek lodgings with her uncle, Sir Benjamin Merryweather (Ioan Gruffudd), on the isolated Moonacre Valley estate.

Accompanied by governess Miss Heliotrope (Juliet Stevenson), Maria arrives at the estate carrying her inheritance, a leather-bound copy of The Ancient Chronicles Of Moonacre Valley, which reveals her family's dark history.

In its pages, she learns of the doomed marriage of Sir Wrolf Merryweather (Gruffudd) and the Moon Princess, daughter of Couer De Noir, and about a set of enchanted pearls which brought the clans into conflict.

Unless she finds the necklace by the rising of the 5,000th moon, the valley will be destroyed. The film is a bore, with nothing to hold the interest of younger viewers.

Richards struggles to make her tyke endearing and Stevenson’s jittery comedy routine falls flat, while Gruffudd delivers his lines as if he is hearing them for the first time.

Occasional computer- generated visual effects do not look realistic.

The digital trickery melds awkwardly with the live action, especially in the watery climax.