Once upon a time in a kingdom faraway……These are words, that often transport us back to the irrefutable charm and innocence of childhood. A period in our lives when often times the boundary between fantasy and reality rarely existed. From the thrills and adventures of superheroes to the fascinating fairy tales our imagination and curiosity took us to distant lands, and wide eyed we often envisaged and emulated the unbelievable and valiant feats that our superheroes achieved. But as time flew, and childhood became a distant past, somewhere deep down we long for those carefree days that make us feel like a little kid again.
‘The Tale of Despereaux’ – Opens precisely on those lines, with the voice over of the narrator (Sigourney Weaver): “Once upon a time, there was a brave, little mouse who loved honor and justice and always told the truth”. As the opening credits roll, the audience is intrigued and eagerly awaits a wondrous story to unfold. We are introduced to the character of Roscuro, a rat on a ship, sailing toward the Kingdom of “Dor, ” which was famous for its specialty soups. Annually, the chief chef would unveil an exquisite ‘new soup’ on “Soup Day” and people from far and near would arrive just to get a whiff of the delicacy.
When the ship arrives at Dor, Roscuro is captivated by the town’s celebratory mood. He becomes so awestruck that he goes into the castle to observe the rituals up close, but unfortunately ends up right in the bowl served to the Queen. Unable to bare the shock the queen is instantly killed. In his anger and grief, the King calls off the annual "Soup Day" forever, the princess is ordered to remain in her room, rats are exiled and the entire kingdom becomes gloomy and dark. Roscuro escapes and ends up in a deep, dark dungeon.
In the meantime, within the same kingdom, in ‘Mice District’, a tiny mouse with incredibly large ears named ‘Despereaux’ is born. It is at this point that the audience is introduced to the central character, well beyond fifteen minutes into the film. Like most lead characters of animated films, Desperaux too is unique, not only physically, but in his mannerisms as well. He is too daring for a mouse, and refuses to follow any rules. While most mice would nibble books, Desperaux prefers to read them, and one fine day he does the unforgivable -he befriends the princess, “a human”. It is then that he learns of the good old days of soups, the kingdom’s misery, and her unhappiness. He vows to himself to be a knight in shinning armor, rescue her and restore happiness in the kingdom. His interaction with a human however is considered an unpardonable offense by the mice and he is banished into the deep dark dungeon inhabited by the wicked rats.
Needless to say that the rest of the film follows Despereaux, his activities, his friendship with Roscuro and his quest to rescue the beautiful princess. Does he succeed? What becomes of him? You would have to watch the film to figure that out.
My Impressions: The film is an adaptation of Kate DiCamillo’s award winning novelby the same name, and as in the case of many book adaptations, the film fails to do justice to the book. Many characters are rushed through and unexplained. It is understandable that when transforming from ‘novel’ to ‘film’, in most cases ‘films’ have to do away with some sub-plots and characters, mainly due to the time-constrained nature of the medium and this is where screen-writing is supposed to weave magic. However, in the case of “The Tale of Desperaux”, lackluster screen writing and uninspiring direction is blatant. At the outset the film does seem appealing, but is bogged down by too many clichés, subplots and back-stories. A rat being interested in soups immediately brings back memories of ‘Ratatouille’, which was released not too long ago. A brave little kid mouse, who is ‘different’ sounds similar to characters like “Nemo” (Finding Nemo), “Mumble” (Happy Feet) and several other films. While those films, stuck to a single major plot and managed to strike a chord with the audience, this film wavers around too many subplots, and way too many characters that keep making appearances off and on, sometimes without a point, thus making it unnecessarily complicated for the targeted audience – kids.
Very often it’s the story-telling in children’s films that is inspiring and moving, because in most cases the story itself is quite predictable. However, in this case it appears that the directors (Fell and Stevenhagen) struggle to keep focus and tie the loose ends together and ultimately this leads to the audience’s lack of empathy toward the characters and a somewhat boring watch overall.
The movie does have its plusses in terms of voiceoversand visuals. Being a “Universal Pictures” film, some of the big names of Hollywood have been roped in. Dustin Hoffman (Roscuro); Kevin Kline (Chief chef Andre), Stanley Tucci (Boldo), Emma Watson (Princess) and Matthew Broderick (Desperaux). All of them, as expected have done incredible jobs, and truly bring their respective characters to life.
The animation style is distinctive compared to most Disney/Pixar films. The use of bright reds, and dark blues are minimal. Several scenes look like paintings on a canvas, and the style seems inspired by the brilliant Japanese animation filmmaker and Oscar winner Hayao Miyazaki’s films like “Howl’s Moving Castle” and “Castle in the Sky”. The detailing is laudable, right down to Despreaux’s whiskers. The movie appears to be a fairy tale within a fairy tale and the scene where Despereaux is reading the fairy tale and ends up meeting the princess is picturized /animated beautifully
By and large, I would say that the film does appeal in parts particularly due to the adorable characterization of “Desperaux” but fails as a whole to make a lasting impression. The basic premise does appeal to adults as well, when considering the story of a bunch of oddballs, trying to adjust and make it in corny environments. Overall, I would recommend reading the book first before watching the film in order to make a bit more sense of the subplots and character behaviors. Its certainly a one time watch atleast for the little ones.