INSIDE THIS ISSUE Now on Netflix ......................................................2 New on Hulu .........................................................2 Amazon Prime .......................................................3
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‘Joker’ is wild, thanks mainly to Joaquin Phoenix
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‘47 Meters Down: Uncaged’ coming soon to DVD
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Fast and Furious presents Hobbs and Shaw
Puzzles ...................................................................4 Local Events ..........................................................7 Movie Schedule .....................................................7
‘His Dark Materials’ – One girl’s quest to find a missing friend
Ruth Wilson stars in “His Dark Materials,” premiering Monday on HBO.
The
Sumter Scene November 2 - November 9, 2019
BY GEORGE DICKIE
In a fantastical world resembling Victorian England, a girl sets out in
search for her kidnapped friend. Where the quest takes her drives the storyline of a series premiering this week on HBO. From the outset of “His Dark Materials,” based on Philip Pullman’s award-winning trilogy of the same name and debuting Monday, Nov. 4, it’s clear that Lyra (Dafne Keen, “Logan”) is no average teen. She’s gutsy, determined and very intelligent, gifts that are nurtured by her instructors at the Magisterium, a Big Brother-esque boarding school, and will serve her well as she seeks her fellow orphan Roger (Lewin Lloyd, “Taboo”). Her uncle, Lord Asriel (James McAvoy, “Filth”), is also preparing for an adventure of his own to the North, where a friend’s expedition party has gone missing. It’s a turbulent, frozen place where witches whisper of a child with a great destiny. Lyra isn’t invited on this trip, much to her disappointment, but Mrs. Coulter (Ruth Wilson, “The Affair”), a woman of considerable means and dubious motives, sees something special in the child and takes her under her wing. The girl accepts the opportunity willingly – as did Keen when first offered the role. “I feel it’s very needed right now because we don’t usually have young woman leads,” the youthful British actress explained to a recent gathering of journalists in Beverly Hills, Calif. “We have more and more, thank God, but they’re not something that we have in abundance, and especially having to portray a character who is so
strong and is so determined and who is a hero is very fun to do, and I feel very privileged to be able to do that.” One of the more whimsical elements of this story are the daemons, digitized animal companions that personify each human character’s soul and serve as their protector and adviser. Lyra’s is Pan, a shapeshifting creature that moves between ferret, bird and possum, while Coulter’s is a monkey and Asriel’s is a snow leopard, all of which prove critical to each character’s journey. “I didn’t really see myself as Lord Asriel but I definitely have an inner snow leopard in me,” McAvoy quips. “ ... And it’s just an interesting relationship with yourself because you get to look at yourself and talk to yourself and talk to your soul and you can’t really hide from who you are in the way that people in our world can. So that was pretty interesting.” For Wilson, the daemon helped her find her way into her character “That for me was a key point at which how I worked out how Mrs. Coulter was,” British actress explains, “was her relationship with herself, her daemon. And so my monkey – she’s Monkey, basically, so how to find the simian in me.” The eight-episode first season also stars Lin-Manuel Miranda (“Hamilton”), Clarke Peters (“The Wire”), James Cosmo (“Braveheart”), Anne-Marie Duff (“Nowhere Boy”) and Ariyon Bakare (“Life”).
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