Mirrormask (2005)

"Has something to astonish everyone.  Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
"Each scene is a masterwork of composition and execution.  Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News

Editor's Note Reminiscent of ALICE IN WONDERLAND and LABYRINTH, MIRRORMASK is a fantasy tale of an intelligent young girl on a journey through a magical world. It is also a visually astounding piece of filmmaking, updating the fairy-tale quest in a coming-of-age story imbued with dark beauty. Written by Neil Gaiman (SANDMAN) and directed by frequent collaborator and illustrator Dave McKean, the film mixes live action and animation, and manages to keep the graphic novelists' aesthetic largely intact: the frames are full of weirdly-skewed perspectives, foggy patches, and mismatched textures that appear grandly decayed. Stephanie Leonidas plays Helena, a young girl who juggles in her father's circus, but longs for a "normal" life. She spends her free time drawing elaborate, fantastical black-and-white pictures which cover every surface of her bedroom. One night, after an argument with her mother (Gina McKee) during which Helena lets fly some rather painful pronouncements, Mom falls ill with an unspecified affliction. As the family waits for news and the circus struggles financially, Helena blames herself for the misfortune. The night before her mother's surgery, Helena is mysteriously transported to a world which bears a strong resemblance to her own drawings, and is populated by strange creatures who follow an even stranger logic. Helena and her traveling companion, fellow juggler Valentine (Jason Barry), sign on to find a mysterious charm which will wake the queen of the city--also played by McKee--from her deep sleep, defeating the forces of darkness and returning Helena home. The film's outstanding art direction is complemented by witty dialogue and some genuinely creepy moments (the words "don't let them see you're afraid" are chill-inducing). Meanwhile, Leonidas's performance is remarkable, maintaining a likeability, charm, and freshness that is all the more amazing considering it was delivered against a green screen, with her special-effect co-stars edited in later.

	Gina McKee
	Jason Barry
	Rob Brydon
	Stephanie Leonidas
	Dave McKean - Director
	Dave McKean, et. al. - Story By
	Iain Ballamy - Original Music By
	Lisa Henson, et. al. - Executive Producer
	Neil Gaiman - Teleplay
	Nicolas Gaster - Editor
	Simon Moorhead - Producer
	Tony Shearn - Cinematographer

Entertainment Weekly
"MIRRORMASK unspools with the rambling, intuitive digressions of a dream..." -- Grade: A- 10/07/2005 p.53

New York Times
"[The film] blends live action with computer-generated animation by the Jim Henson Company into a provocative, murky surrealism." 10/28/2005 p.E29

Sight and Sound
"MIRRORMASK ambitiously draws on a diverse range of influences....McKean treats every frame of film as it were a strip panel scheduled for reproduction in a glossy art book." p.67-68

Uncut
"[With] a winning WIZARD OF OZ-style structure...[and] a resplendent universe of impossible vistas and fabulous beings." 04/01/2006 p.134

James Berardinelli's ReelViews 5 of 10
How best to encapsulate my feelings about MirrorMask? What about: visually active, but emotionally inert? A lot of descriptors are apt: unorthodox, stylistically inventive, a labor of love, and (perhaps most importantly) a failed experiment. The central evident flaw is that, although the film may look and feel unlike other movies, the limited pleasure derived from its appearance goes only so far. When the time comes for classical elements like story and character to take over, they are unequal to the task. MirrorMask is built on a foundation of stock plot elements. The narrative is simplistic and lacking in energy, and the characters are sketched instead of fully formed. - James Berardinelli

Chicago Sun-Times 5 of 10
MirrorMask must have been a labor of love to make. Watching it is also a labor of love. The movie is a triumph of visual invention, but it gets mired in its artistry and finally becomes just a whole lot of great stuff to look at while the plot puts the heroine through a few basic moves over and over again. - Roger Ebert