Film: Golden Girl (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Film: Golden Girl

4:00pm Friday 7th December 2007 in

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The Golden Compass (PG) First in the His Dark Materials trilogy, about a girl's extraordinary adventure, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.

BASED on Philip Pullman's best-selling first novel in the His Dark Materials trilogy, The Golden Compass, tells an epic tale centred on precocious 12 year-old Lyra Belacqua, whose curiosity opens the door to mysteries upon which the fate of her world comes to rest.

A ward of Jordan College in Oxford, Lyra is being raised among the mostly paternal company of the Master, where her best and most trusted friend is a kitchen boy named Roger.

"When the story opens, Lyra is going through her life doing her daily activities with no knowledge that the decisions she makes affect anything else in this world, or any of the parallel worlds that exist," says writer/director Chris Weitz.

He encountered the first book in Philip Pullman's award-winning trilogy while making the film, About A Boy. "I had heard from friends of mine about a fantastic British fantasy series,'" recalls Weitz.

"I was absolutely stunned by the imagination and intelligence of the books. As far as ambition and philosophical depth, they left everything I had read previously in the dust.

"It offers everything a filmmaker would be interested in - a compelling story, fascinating characters, psychological and philoso-phical depth, wonder and the chance to make a beautiful film," explains Weitz.

To find the right young person to play Lyra, casting directors Fiona Weir and Lucy Bevan cast a wide net across the UK, ultimately seeing more than 10,000 young actresses at open sessions in four towns, including Kendal.

Dakota Blue Richards had read the books and seen the stage adaptation of The Golden Compass, and jumped at the chance to play Lyra.

"Because Lyra never had parents, she thinks no one can tell her what to do, so she never really does what she's told," explains Richards.

"She does things other people would be scared of, like climbing the roofs of Jordan College, where she lives, and getting in trouble."

Lyra's life changes when she meets Mrs Coulter (Nicole Kidman), the beautiful and entrancing head of the Magisterium's General Oblation Board, who visits the college on business. A beguiling scholar and an explorer, Mrs Coulter appears to offer her best chance to get away.

But Lyra finds that she has been drawn into a trap designed to take from her the one thing she possesses that the Magisterium desperately seeks - the Golden Compass. It is a mystical, powerful device that can tell the truth, reveal what others wish to hide and foreshadow - and even change - the future.

At that moment, Lyra realises that she will have to break away from Mrs Coulter and embark on her own journey to rescue Roger and stop the Magisterium.

Forming an unlikely alliance with a tribe of sea-faring Gyptians, the mysterious witch Serafina Pekkala (Eva Green) and Texas airman Lee Scoresby (Sam Elliott), Lyra is flung into an adventure that will take her over sky and ocean, to the wilds of the icy north, where she gains a powerful ally in a great armoured bear named Iorek Byrnison (voiced by Ian McKellen).

The other great force and role model in Lyra's life is Lord Asriel, her powerful and enigmatic uncle, played by Daniel Craig (pictured inset).

A fan of Pullman's trilogy, Craig says of The Golden Compass: "It's a very exciting story about being a human being, and how difficult that is. It's about growing up and how what happens in your childhood is the most important part of your life."