Friday, September 05, 2003 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

MOVIE REVIEW: Out on a Limb

'I Capture the Castle' melds fairy-tale trappings with Jane Austen-style drama

In "I Capture the Castle," sisters Rose (Rose Byrne), left, and Cassandra (Romola Garai) celebrate a dream come true. All-American Neil Cotton (Marc Blucas) and Rose forge an unexpected connection.

Just because a tale begins with the magical phrase "Once upon a time ..." doesn't always mean it ends with the equally felicitous "And they lived happily ever after ..."

A case in point: "I Capture the Castle," a 20th-century storybook tale based on a coming-of-age classic by Dodie Smith, a British playwright and novelist best known on these shores for the children's book that inspired Disney's 1961 animated feature, "101 Dalmatians."

Despite its stylish 1930s setting, "I Capture the Castle" boasts a number of essential, if slightly twisted, fairy-tale elements that give the movie an engaging, slightly otherworldly air -- one that occasionally clashes with, but more often enhances, the all-too-human foibles at its heart.

The tale's title castle has the requisite tower and moat, to be sure, but it's more than a bit dilapidated. The resident stepmother (Tara FitzGerald) isn't wicked, just bohemian, a frustrated muse to her novelist husband (Bill Nighy), who's been struggling for 20 years to follow up on the promise of his first -- and, so far, only -- novel.

There's a beautiful older sister, Rose (Rose Byrne), abloom with perfect princess ringlets and romantic dreams to match, some of which may involve not one but two charming princes from that enchanted realm known as America.

But "I Capture the Castle's" central figure is no conventional fairy-tale heroine. How could she be, with a name like Cassandra?

As played by "Nicholas Nickleby's" Romola Garai, she's a brainy, dreamy 17-year-old who'd be perfectly at home in a Jane Austen novel, watching the world go by and declaring her utter disinterest in romance. That is, until her unexpectedly active emotions, much to her dismay, rear their pesky little heads.

Unlike her novelist father, who's been unable to write for years, Cassandra has no trouble putting her thoughts and observations down on paper -- in a diary that supplies the movie's voice-over narration.

And while most movies resort to voice-over when the filmmakers can't figure out how to convey vital information visually, "I Capture the Castle's" narration proves central to the movie's charm.

Not only does it enhance the tale's fairy-tale flavor, it also offers a witty and sometimes sardonic commentary, contrasting Cassandra's tart observations with her often contradictory actions.

When it comes to contradictions, however, she's admirably forthright compared to her sister Rose, who's determined to use her beauty -- in another straight-out-of-Austen convention -- to improve the fading family fortunes.

Conveniently, two dashing, not to mention eminently eligible, young Americans have just inherited the estate next door: brothers Simon and Neil Cotton. Separated for much of their childhood, the gentle, scholarly Simon (Henry Thomas, most recently seen in "Gangs of New York") and his rough-and-ready brother Neil ("Sunshine State's" Marc Blucas) don't seem to have much in common -- except, perhaps, for a their interest in Rose.

As Cassandra discovers, however, she's far from a indifferent party in these proceedings. But it's only one of many insights and revelations that give "I Capture the Castle" some dramatic -- and, occasionally, melodramatic -- heft.

Like many fairy tales, "I Capture the Castle" spans the comic and the cosmic, careening from delight to dread as the characters attempt to sort out life's surprising complications.

Using Cassandra's diary entries to bridge the gaps, screenwriter Heidi Thomas capably handles not only the plot twists but, more importantly, Cassandra's reactions to them -- reactions that give the movie an emotional resonance it might otherwise lack, considering the largely self-centered types populating her home castle and environs.

Overall, director Tim Fywell -- a TV veteran ("Madame Bovary," "Norma Jean and Marilyn") making a handsome big-screen debut -- handles the movie's storybook extremes with aplomb. Now and then, however, his polite approach tends to blunt the tale's elemental, emotional force, much as Victorian-era versions of old folk tales tend to bury the racier elements beneath layers of fanciful gentility.

As a result, "I Capture the Castle's" ultimate impact depends on -- and, for the most part, succeeds on the strength of -- its sterling players, some of whom don't get nearly the screen time they deserve.

The wonderful Sinead Cusack, for example, who plays the Cotton brothers' tart-tongued mother with the perfect note of drop-dead arrogance. Or Nighy as the world-weary writer who's so afraid of acknowledging his failings he can't do anything but indulge them.

And while the Cotton brothers themselves provide an effective contrast -- Thomas' sensitive Simon versus Blucas' blunt Neil -- much of the movie's appeal rests primarily with the entrancing sisters at its core.

Byrne (who played Sen. Amidala's maid in "Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones") captures Rose's yearnings, to say nothing of her smiling desperation, with undeniable flair.

Even more crucially, Garai (next up in the "Dirty Dancing" prequel "Havana Nights") provides an ideal anchor for her sister's (and the movie's) flights of fancy. Ably conveying both the down-to-earth and the dreamy sides of Cassandra's contradictory personality, Garai leads us unerringly along that perilous path we're all destined to walk -- the one leading from childhood to maturity, from innocence to knowledge, from the dazzling but hollow wallop of infatuation to the deeper, darker and inestimably more mysterious dominion known as love.