City of Ember

The Associated Press

October 09, 2008 by The Associated Press | Staff

0 votes

The evidence is obvious and overwhelming: The elemental structures of society are crumbling. Yet leaders assure that everything is fine, there's nothing to worry about, just return to your jobs and all will be OK in the end.

Sound like the U.S. government as Wall Street collapsed? Yes, actually.

But it's also what happens in "City of Ember," in which a couple of kids manage to save a dying civilization so deluded by its leaders that it doesn't even realize it's sick. Any resemblance to the current situation we find ourselves in may or may not be intentional -- Jeanne Duprau wrote the novel on which the film is based in 2003.

Ember is an underground city, established by the Builders to last 200 years. As the film begins, it's year 241. The generator that provides the city's light and power is failing, held together by spit and bailing wire, though the mayor (Bill Murray) blithely insists there's nothing to worry about.

Doon Harrow (Harry Treadaway) and Lina Mayfleet (Saoirse Ronan) aren't convinced. On Assignment Day, when 12-year-olds choose their lifelong employment out of a hat, she gets a job in the pipeworks. Doon lands one as a messenger. Both disappointed, they trade and use their new gigs to figure out a way to save Ember or at least the people who live there.

Doon's father, Loris (Tim Robbins), seems bemused by, yet indulgent of, his son's concerns. Lina, meanwhile, lives with her increasingly scattered grandmother and baby sister. There's a curious box in their closet -- one that shows up in the portraits of earlier mayors (Lina is a direct descendent of one of them; she sometimes delivers messages to the mayor's office and sees the portraits hanging there.) Her grandmother can't remember what the box is for, exactly, only that it's important.

Bit by bit, Lina and Doon piece together the mystery, while they uncover the corruption at the city's rotten core. No one has ever known what strategy the Builders had for Ember once time ran out, and the mayor and his cronies aren't particularly interested in anyone working very hard to solve the problem. But Lina and Doon believe there's a way out.

Murray has a grand old time as the self-satisfied mayor, strangely portly in a city running out of food. Has anyone ever managed to make smugness not only forgivable but appealing?

Whether by coincidence or intention, "City of Ember" hits home, and it leaves you hoping that we'll find our own Doon and Lina to get to the bottom of things before it's too late.

- By Bill Goodykoontz / Gannett News Service

City of Ember

Rating: 3 stars (out of four)

Cast: Bill Murray, Tim Robbins, Saoirse Ronan, Harry Treadaway, Martin Landau, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Toby Jones, Mary Kay Place.

Running time: 95 minutes.

Rated: PG; mild peril and some thematic elements.

Forum: Movies

Tags: 

rated pg, Bill Murray, Tim Robbins, Saoirse Ronan, Harry Treadaway, Martin Landau, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Toby Jones, Mary Kay Place

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