Delicious, striking sets and rich, beautiful acting

Rating: 8/10 (24 February 2008)

Stardust is a lush fantasy story about love, dark magic, evil witches, entitlements of inheritance, and the twinkling stars in the sky. It is gorgeously filmed and well paced, and its denouement will make your heart soar.
For the unrequited love of a girl, young Tristan (Charlie Cox) vows to bring back a fallen star. But once he makes it to the crater where the star hit, he realizes the star isn't a rock at all - it's a beautiful young lady named Yvaine (Claire Danes), who's none to pleased to have fallen from her high-and-mighty perch in the firmament. But promises being promises, Tristan ensnares Yvaine using an enchanted chain and begins their journey back to his village, so that he may present the star to his love, Victoria (Sienna Miller).
But Tristan and Yvaine are unwittingly part of a larger story; the king of the enchanted realm (Peter O'Toole) has just died, and the new ruler will be he among the sons who possesses the kingdom's sacred ruby, which the dying king had tossed up into the heavens, where it smacked into Yvaine, thus bringing her crashing to Earth. Now all the king's remaining sons are on the hunt for the ruby, not knowing Yvaine wears it around her neck.
Meanwhile, three witch sisters have noticed the falling star, which is a major omen in the kingdom of Stormhold; whoever can possess the fallen star will be immortal. You don't have to be pure evil to think immortality might be kind of fun, so the oldest of the sisters, Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) sets off to find it as well.
During the long journey back home, Tristan learns about love and his own parentage. Oh, does he learn about love! With a griping, angry denizen of the sky as his prisoner, Tristan thinks he has everything worked out; he'll present Yvaine to Victoria, who will marry him instead of the cad Humphery (and really, could he be anything but a cad, with that name?).
This is more than a simple fantasy story of good versus evil. It's about telling the difference between being infatuated and being in love; it's about trust and righteousness; it's about doing the right thing, even when it seems impossible to do so.
Based on a Neil Gaiman story, Stardust is impeccably written (it was adapted for the screen by director Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman), with rich characterizations, top-notch acting, and wondrous visual effects. Robert DeNiro gets a showy role as the captain of a flying ship (sort of a cross between a dirigible and a pirate ship), and although it IS a showy role, DeNiro is far from hammy in it - he is, in fact, outstanding. Pfeiffer is remarkably despicable as the ugly-then-beautiful-then-ugly rotten witch Lamia. She doesn't dress down for the role, she dresses down and dirty and Lamia is not a shallow, one-dimensional character in the least. A lesser actress would have played the part a little over the top, portraying Lamia as a power-mad demagogue obsessed with looking pretty, but Pfeiffer delivered a multilayered performance, fulsome in its depth.
Danes is also a huge asset here. Her dancing eyes and rubied lips (matching the stone, of course), coupled with the CGI-added glow about her (since she is, after all, a fallen star) lend a real ethereal feel to her character, but it's her acting that lends the appropriate gravitas; otherwise, Yvaine would be a simple, irritated version of Victoria.
And although the role of Tristan might have been given to an actor offering only a callow performance, Charlie Cox is fantastic as the protagonist. He doesn't just let things happen to him, he makes things happen through decisive actions, good or bad. He's forthright and honest; he's just blinded by the prospect of love from Victoria.
Exquistely photographed and with quick, efficient pacing that doesn't let itself get bogged down in the special effects of the moment, Stardust is a real treat for fans of fantasy novels and movies.