CITY OF EMBER is a triumph of art direction trumping everything else. Based on the novel by Jeanne Duprau, it is brimming with imagination, a pointedly political subtext, but not a whit of the wonder that should drive a tale such as this.
The eponymous city contains the remnants of humanity, sent to the underground haven when the world ended. The first mayor of that town was entrusted by its builders with a box of instructions on how to return to the upper world that was timed to open in 200 years, when the descendents of the survivors would no longer feel the sorrow of leaving the life above ground. Things went awry, and the box after passing successfully through the regimes of six mayors went missing when the seventh died precipitously. Its existence forgotten by all but his great-granddaughter, now elderly, who has, unfortunately, forgotten why it was ever important. That is not the worst of it. The giant generator that keeps the lights on and life going underground has gone way past its expiration date, the food is running out, and the population at large, led by the less than astute current mayor, has become complacent despite the facts of the situation being irrefutable. There is an energy crisis, a food shortage, and the infrastructure is crumbling into dust, but rather than acting on those cues, they prefer to focus on the imminent return of the builders, or rather Builders, who have become legendary and semi-divine and the faith that all will be made right when that happens. It’s an attitude that has rendered the population placid. They accept a lifelong career assigned to them by picking a job title out of a sack rather than talent or inclination. They don’t think it odd that the telephone company uses red-caped messengers instead of actual phones to get information from one place to another. They don’t wonder why there is a paunch on their mayor (Bill Murray) when the rest of them are starving. They don’t question that attempting to leave Ember by following its river upstream is an act of treason.
Make that mostly placid. Doon Harrow (Harry Treadaway) newly graduated from school and full of the rebellious fire that teenagers ought to have, believes, so to speak, that the Builders help those who help themselves, and formulates a plan to get into the generator room and repair the behemoth before it finally conks out. He get an unexpected ally in this in the from of Lina (Saoirse Roanan), the granddaughter of that great-granddaughter, who finds the box. The film offers no real information about how he’s going to do that once his hoped-for assignment as an electrical apprentice doesn’t work out. It’s just one example of the spotty adaptation. It’s as though the filmmakers looked at the set, a big and impressive bit of work, and decided that nothing else really mattered in telling the story. True, cinema is a visual medium, but it is not a static one. Giant moths and moles abound with no explanation. It’s not enough to show a knitting shop that has devolved into a spider’s web of yarn, an entire universe that is tattered, threadbare, and repurposed, nor the rinky-tink machines still functioning in Ember just barely. Narrative matters even when the quest to discover just what that box is culminates in a thrilling and water special effects sequence, which, alas turns out to be merely watery. Murray is more interesting, offering support to the job pickers who pick the good jobs, encouragement to the ones who come up with things like potato peeler. He’s glib, ironic, and attacks a sardine with a malicious glee that is startling. Ronan, fresh from an Oscar™ nomination for ATONEMENT, seems less focused, though she maintains a nice air or determination, especially when Lina is forced to deal with her baby sister, Poppy, a poppet with a penchant for bobbing around, eating unfortunate things, and wandering off. Treadaway is hunky, Tim Robbins as his mechanically inclined father is more distracted than engaging.
What made the book version of CITY OF EMBERS interesting has, in the film version, been beaten down to an entropic standstill. It feels more like it is marking time than telling a grand story on a grand scale.
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