|
|
 |
|
|
|
Genre
Fantasy
Length
196 minutes
Director
Dewi Humphreys
Major Stars
Gary Bakewell
Laura Fraser
Tanya Moodie
MPAA Rating
NR
Year Released
1996
Review Posted on
4/17/2005
Rating
|
|
|
Review by C. Dennis Moore
Before it became a best-selling book, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere was a BBC 2 television series. Recently these 6 episodes have been released on DVD. I was fortunate enough, last year, to have a friend who found a VHS copy at a comic convention and he let me borrow it. I've had it for a very long time and only recently sat down and watched it. It's about time, and it was 196 minutes well-spent.
Neverwhere started as a fantasy story about London's homeless population. Originally Gaiman didn't want to do such a series because, in his words, he didn't want to make it cool to be homeless lest teens all over Birmingham and Liverpool and Oxford decided to leave home and go to London to live on the streets. But eventually he overcame his hesitation and wrote the series.
Neverwhere tells the story of Richard Mayhew, 18 months engaged to Jess (who insists on being called Jessica), working in securities, and leading a very dull life. One night, on the way to dinner, he spots a young girl bleeding on the sidewalk. He picks her up, much to Jess's chagrin, and carries her home to care for her. She tells him "No hospitals", so what other option does he have? As he's walking away with the girl in his arms, Jess tells him if he helps the girl the engagement is over. Richard, already taking on the role of hero ten minutes into the story, walks away.
The next morning he learns the girl's name is Door and that two thugs, Croup and Vandemar are looking for her. Richard helps Door get back home with the help of one of her associates, the marquis de Carabas. But once Door and the marquis are gone, Richard tries to re-enter his own life only to find no one notices him anymore. He goes to work and is met with silence when he asks why his best friend isn't talking to him. When the friend, Gary, finally realizes Richard is standing there, he doesn't recognize him. Richard goes to Jessica, but she doesn't remember him, either. And when he goes home, he finds his landlord in his flat, talking about having the "previous tenants" things taken away. In order to get his life back, Richard finds his way back to London Below, initially to find out from Door why no one knows him anymore, and discovers an entire world complete with towns, homes, and streets, beneath London.
Once you're part of London Below, people just don't see you anymore. They can talk to you, but as soon as you're out of sight, you're out of mind. This is Gaiman's commentary, I believe, on the way society decides not to acknowledge the people we don't want to have to admit we aren't helping. Our lives are perfect because there's no one around to remind us of the good we're not doing.
During Richard's return home, Door and the marquis had gone to Door's former home to look for clues to the identity of the man responsible for her family's deaths. Croup and Vandemar were the killers, but Door wants to find out who sent them. When she sees Richard has returned, he joins them on their quest and the story is in motion. From this point, in the second episode, Neverwhere doesn't let up for a second. There are tests, battles, mysteries, riddles, friends are made, lost, found again, and Richard is made a part of this new world, even though all he really wants, in the end, is to get his life back.
Neverwhere was exactly what I've come to expect from Neil Gaiman. Things like Door's "Associative House" (Door and the marquis enter a room full of pictures of rooms in different houses. Door's house is an "associative house", that's a house with different rooms in different locations, which I think is a brilliant idea and one I wish I'd thought of first), the Beast of London, the angel Islington. Everything in Neverwhere is pure Gaiman brilliance and a good reminder of why I love his work in the first place.
The cast of Neverwhere seems to be strictly British, naturally.<
click graphic to check availability at the following stores:
|
| There are no comments on this movie. |
|
|
|
|
