Lacking in wonder, lashings of ginger beer (and pain)

For two weekends in a row, both on a Sunday, I have been in the presence of Helena Bonham Carter. Not in the flesh you must understand, but first in the cinema and then on the small screen. Altaa and I had chosen to see Alice in Wonderland 3D in Bluewater Shopping Centre since the local Odeon was only in 2D. Having been in the schedules for a week or so, I thought enthusiasm would have died down and we could have a screening of our choice. That was not to be. We got there at about 1pm and, already, not only had the 2pm viewing become fully booked but also the 4.30pm display. We had to wait until the 7.15pm showing. That meant we had to kill almost six hours. We did first by eating at La Tasca tapas bar, then we idled around the mall going our separate as dictated by our interests, so neither would be bored and meeting up at designated locations. I swiftly found Waterstones and became engrossed there. At about 5.20pm, I was told that Waterstones had actually closed and who did it happen to be telling me, but Rachel Johns, who had not recognised me from behind. A pleasant surprise. As she said, “Just proves that I do work here.”
For the next hour and a bit we retreated t a bar near the cinema, I watched Sky Sports reporting of the main footballing events (and the goals) of the day, while Altaa settled down with a discarded fashion magazine left on a table, while we both nursed our drinks.
At last we could see the film. The 3D glassed handed out weren’t a good fit and kept slipping down my nose, but the special effects were the best part of the movie. Tim Burton’s conflation of Lewis Carroll’s two stand-out works, it is arguably his weakest work. The movie was of interest in its incidence but it didn’t emotionally grab me at any time. Bonham Carter played the Red Queen with terrible tantrums to compensate for the absence of pulchritudinous looks. Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter was the best thing in it, but his final dance was uninspired disappointing – a microcosm of the picture in general. Altaa surmised that it must be of greatest interest to children who wouldn’t object so strongly to linear, non-surprising narrative. As 3D creations go, Avatar was superior in most respects.
As we left, we faced a twenty minute wait on a cold platform for the train after arriving at the station but, by happy chance, the previous service was eight minutes late, meaning we had arrived just in time to hop on.
This past Sunday we watched Bonham Carter play Enid Blyton in Enid. Blyton was another idealised writer with feet of clay – a despotic, selfish monster of a woman who could not accept anything that wasn’t in her control (not unlike the Red Queen), much of this stemming from the neuroses created by the collapse of her parents’ marriage. In a way, she had to invent a make-believe world to cope, but frequently extended this in to reality to the detriment of all those around her. Of course, this was a drama and so we must take everything here with a pinch of salt, but it was immensely enjoyable in the sense of being gripping. Altaa felt a bit too much was crammed in to 85 minutes, but it wasn’t something that bothered me. It was far better than the entertainment in Bonham Carter’s motion picture the previous weekend.