The passage from this world to the fantasy kingdom of Stormhold is through a breach in a wall beside an English village. In the 1800s, a boy becomes a man when he ventures through the breach in pursuit of a fallen star, to prove his love for the village beauty. The star is no lump of rock, it’s a maiden, Yvaine. Tristan, the youth, is not the only one looking for her: three witches, led by Lamia, want her heart to make them young; and, the sons of the dead king of Stormhold want her because she holds a ruby that will give one of them title to the throne. Assisting Tristan are his mother, the victim of a spell, and a cross-dressing pirate of the skies. Will Tristan win his true love? Written by jhailey
I’ve actually never seen this movie, it happens to be one of Larisa’s favorites and we actually will be talking about this particular book to movie adaptation, among others, in an upcoming Nevermore podcast soon (hint hint).
I usually do movie reviews on movies I’ve seen to be fair however, Neil Gaiman happens to be a rather prevalent book/writer to movie/screenplay persona in the publishing world – perhaps only rivaled by Stephan King himself. Albeit, King is a horror writer and Gaiman is Jack of all Trades as the saying goes.
This movie has some interesting historical references that are pretty obvious. For example, Captain Shakespeare being a reference to well… Shakespeare. The three witches are a nice little Easter egg reference to many different takes on cultural beliefs such as the Fates (Greek), Furies (Greco-Roman), the Triple Moon Goddess (Celtic and Wiccan), the Norns (Norse/Germanic culture).
It’s also your typical boy in tin foil turns into a man in shining armor story. A romantic, boy thinks he loves one girl who makes huge demands on him, he tries to fulfill those demands while battling “demons” and “monsters” and finds out that his princess isn’t exactly who he thought she was and the real queen happens to be the girl standing next to him with her own sword in hand.
It speaks, in a way of modern relationship goals and expectations versus realities. Just like Shakespeare did, just like the mythology of most cultures do, just like most belief systems give advice on. It’s also about personal goals and aspirations of achievement and how those may change and we grow and learn. It’s definitely a movie that has hit my movie bucket list in the last few weeks and I’ll eventually revisit this movie review with more thoughts when I have seen it, until then let me know in the comments if you’ve seen the movie and your take on it!
