Since I’ve been a fan of Neil Gaiman’s work for a long, long, long time now, when I got the chance to go see a preview of the film Stardust I took it. (Actually, I took it twice as I’ll be seeing it next week at well.) Stardust is an original Gaiman story, which has taken two forms: a graphic novel with illustrations by Charles Vess and a traditional text novel. I’m not surprised that this story was adapted for film as it’s got a simple, but thrilling, tale to tell. My only question was how well the movie-makers would tell it.

The movie’s not exactly like the novel, of course–what movie ever is? What movie can be?–but all in all, I think they did a great job.

image via imdb

The story, as framed in the film, is a little bit on the slight side, but it’s never less than entertaining. Undoubtedly there will be nitpicky Gaiman fans complaining about this bit being left out or that bit added in or those bits being compressed, but the basics of the story remain the same and, anyway, it’s a likeable tale. Tristan (Charlie Cox) is a young man living in a town called Wall that borders a magical world where no one from Tristan’s side is allowed to go. Tristan is in love with the village beauty, Victoria (Sienna Miller), and his chief rival is a big, buff dude who routinely humiliates poor, sweet Tristan. A week before her birthday, Tristan is out having a picnic with Victoria at night when they see a falling star. Tristan boasts that he’ll get the star for her at which point Victoria tells him that she’ll marry him if he does.

Tristan makes it to the star only to discover that she’s a person, Yvaine (Claire Danes). Nevertheless, he’s determined to fulfill his pledge to Victoria, so he chains up Yvaine and makes her come along with him back to Wall. It’s not a simple journey as Tristan’s far from the only one who wants the star and on the journey back to his home Tristan and Yvaine will encounter pirates, witches, all kinds of danger, and a growing mutual admiration. Stand-out performances from actors with key roles include Robert DeNiro and Michelle Pfeiffer who both have roles which could easily slide into camp but they both manage to scale back just enough to keep their characters from sliding into caricature. Stardust is a sweet story with romance, suspense and adventure and I highly recommend seeing it when it opens in August.