The Secret of Moonacre wants to be a fantasy, a family movie, and a story of female empowerment and destiny. They had so many things in their favor including Bridge to Terabithia director Gabor Csupo, a child actress with a feature already under her belt, a screenplay based on The Little White Horse, and the king of camp Tim Curry. The production had the resources and stellar cast to make this film exactly what they wanted, which makes the resulting film The Secret of Moonacre even more disappointing.
In The Secret of Moonacre, Maria Merryweather (Dakota Blue Richards) is sent off to Moonacre to live with her uncle Sir Benjamin Merryweather (Ioan Gruffudd) when her father dies. She is accompanied by her quirky tutor Miss Heliotrope (Juliet Stevenson). When they arrive, Sir Benjamin is a poor host to say the least. He is annoyed by Maria’s questions and forbids her from exploring in the woods. Worst of all, he takes away Maria’s storybook which was the only possession left to her in her father’s will. The book tells of a princess (Natascha McElhone) who was in tune with nature and the earth, and she was given a string of pearls that possessed great powers. On her wedding day, she tries to share the pearls with her father (Tim Curry) and her fiancée (Ioan Gruffudd playing double-duty), but both were overcome with greed. The princess puts a curse over the land that when the 5000th moon rises, Moonacre will be destroyed. Only a true moon princess can undo the curse. Maria must find the pearls and resolve the long-standing conflict between the ancestors of the princess’ father and the ancestors of the princess’ fiancée before it is too late.
Starting with the positives, there were some performances in the film that showed promise. Ioan Gruffudd’s Sir Benjamin was channeling Jane Eyre’s Mr. Rochester playing a character who puts up a tough exterior to hide a broken heart. Gruffudd is a good choice to play this kind of role, and if there are any Jane Austin adaptations or period pieces going into production, casting directors should give Gruffudd a chance. Tim Curry was the perfect pick for a dark-hearted power-hungry villain, and I only regretted that they did not give him enough screen time. His character resolution at the end of the film also felt forced and did not feel like it fit in the story. Dakota Blue Richards does a fair job with the leading role of Maria, and it shows why she was later cast as Lyra in The Golden Compass. In comparing the two movies, however, she is much stronger in The Golden Compass having The Secret of Moonacre already under her belt, and I believe that she received clearer direction in The Golden Compass.
Another positive aspect of the film was the production design. I loved the magical ceiling in Maria’s room with the night sky and shooting stars, and I think that a lot of young girls will want a room just like it. Her dresses were also an off-beat take on the usual period piece look. The color choices and the front of the dress are fairly typical, but the back of the dress is designed so that she looks like a horse when she walks. I liked that the costume designer tweaked a standard dress style just enough to set it visually in a fantastical world.
Once the audience gets past the cast and the production design, however, The Secret of Moonacre falls apart. First off, the plot is really confusing and tries to do too much. As a result, the exposition and back-story seems rushed, and I felt like pieces of the story were missing. At its best, the pearls plotline reminded me of the ring of power in Lord of the Rings, but the narration spent little time explaining the pearls’ power. As I watched the plot come together at the end, I did not ever get a chance to see what the pearls could do or why Maria needed to throw them into the ocean. Maria had only lived with her uncle for a short time, and besides looking out for her own well-being, I didn’t get the sense that she cared all that much about Moonacre’s impending doom. The pearls could have easily been any number of magical objects, and the fact that they are pearls does not seem to have any special significance, lowering them to nothing more than a mystical MacGuffin.
In the end, The Secret of Moonacre had a lot of potential, but it was squandered on a convoluted story. The film might not have had the resources of a fantasy epic like The Lord of the Rings, but they could have made something in the tradition of The Princess Bride or Ella Enchanted. Instead, they made a film that is too confusing for kids and has nothing extraordinary to offer adults.
DVD Bonus Features
Special features are pretty standard. There is a making-of featurette, some deleted scenes, and interviews with the cast. For those who still want to check out The Secret of Moonacre, the DVD might be worth a rental, but the special features don’t make it worth a purchase.
"The Secret of Moonacre" is on sale September 21, 2010 and is rated PG. Adventure, Children & Family, Fantasy, Romance. Directed by Gabor Csupo. Written by Lucy Shuttleworth, Graham Alborough, Elizabeth Goudge . Starring Augustus Prew, Dakota Blue Richards, Ioan Gruffudd, Juliet Stevenson, Natascha McElhone, Tamas Toth, Tim Curry.
