'The Golden Compass'
reviewed by Donna Scott

Before going to see the film adaptation of Phillip Pullman’s Northern Lights (The Golden Compass: US), I tried to steer clear of all the discussion on the Internet – not to avoid plot spoilers, but because I didn’t want to be put off by the views of anyone who had read the book as well and made disappointed comparisons, as often happens with film adaptations of anything.

However, two seemingly contrary views still broke through the defences: that the film was very dark for a children’s film, but also very light, the plot prettied up for a young and sensitive audience and stripped of many of the book’s more complex and troubling proposals concerning religion. So, a balance of dark and light then?

The plot of the film basically reflects that of the first book: Lyra – a girl who lives under the care of her uncle, Lord Asriel, in Jordan College, in the Oxford of a world parallel to our own – overhears a plot to cover up the discovery of ‘Dust’ in the far North. The authoritarian grown-ups of her world – the Magisterium – fear this Dust, but the children have something else to be scared about – the ‘Gobblers’ who have been kidnapping children off the streets. Then Lyra is sent to stay with the beautiful and mysterious Mrs Coulter, and her uncle presents her with the truth-telling alethiometer – the ‘golden compass’ of the title – which she is to keep secret.

When he began the project, the director, Chris Weitz, was troubled by his inexperience with CGI. None of that trouble is apparent in the film, which has stunning visuals from the start and does justice to Pullman’s depictions of Lyra’s Oxford. I am also pleased to say that there was no stinting on the daemons – the creatures that are part of the humans in Lyra’s world – which had concerned me as they seemed to be conspicuously absent from trailer clips that I’d seen beforehand.

Besides the very plausible graphics, the film has other strengths, particularly in the performances of Nicole Kidman (Mrs Coulter) and Dakota Blue Fanning (Lyra), whose manner of tough-talking at the beginning may have seemed stilted to some, but was exactly how I’d imagined her to speak. Their interaction is perhaps brought into focus to the detriment of other characters that aren’t afforded enough screen time to allow for much development. In a film with a running time of just 113 minutes, I’m not sure how Weitz could have done otherwise. However, he does make unnecessary use of Daniel Craig’s association with James Bond with some lengthy long shots of Lord Asriel being pursued through the snow.