First love, dreams of the future, broken hearts, and coming to terms with the past: that's a lot to deal with in just one eventful summer, but seventeen-year-old Cassandra (Romola Garai) is facing up to exactly those things as she narrates I Capture the Castle. Set in 1930s England, the film follows Cassandra and her family throughout this summer and all the events that will change their lives.

I Capture the Castle has a polished look. It's well acted. It seems to have all the ingredients to be a thoughtful, warm film about growing up and falling in love. But something never "clicked" for me, and while I wanted to like the film, it left me completely cold. From the very beginning to the final scene, I felt that the film was operating on a different wavelength than I was, and no matter how I tried to engage with the characters and situation, I was never able to get on the same wavelength.

Throughout the film, I Capture the Castle balances precariously between farcical humor and serious, realistic drama. At first, the film seems to set up a serious situation: the Mortmain family comes to their new castle home with high hopes, but as twelve years pass and their father remains incapable of writing a single word, we see that they are basically miserable and impoverished. But as soon as we get to know the characters a bit more, the comedic angle comes into play: the girls' stepmother is exaggeratedly Bohemian, taken to dancing around the castle grounds in the nude, there's a precocious little brother who seems awkwardly tacked onto the story, and the sisters Rose (Rose Byrne) and Cassandra are naive and clueless when it comes to social relationships beyond their household.

It's clear that I Capture the Castle has some direction to it, and isn't going to be a simple "slice of life"; what's less clear is what that direction is. When the owner of the castle and his brother show up, the Mortmain family's lives change completely, as Simon's wealth and Neil's charm make them into magnets for the would-be social climber Rose, as well as influencing Cassandra and her father. Eventually, the film settles on exploring the way that Cassandra and Rose fall in love and deal with the conflict between their desires and what they can actually have. It takes a remarkably long time to get to this point, however, and viewers will be excused for spending quite a while wondering where the film is going.

It also doesn't help matters much that much of the time, the characters behave in rather inexplicable ways. I tend to be of the opinion that if a character behaves in a peculiar way, there ought to be a reason for it; "he/she is a strange person" doesn't really cut it. Unfortunately, "the Mortmains are strange, unworldly people" seems to be the default explanation for quite a bit of character behavior in the film. Either that, or we're supposed to have some sort of deep insight into these characters early on that allows us to put everything in the correct context; but as I said, I never felt that I was on the same wavelength as this film, so if there's some context, I missed it completely.

I'll note that I Capture the Castle is rated "R" for "brief nudity" only; it's not even in a sexual context. So as long as you don't share the MPAA's excessive prudery about breasts (oh! the horror!), I Capture the Castle is quite suitable for family viewing.

The DVD

Video

The transfer of I Capture the Castle looks good, despite half the disc space being wasted by the inclusion of a pan-and-scan version of the film along with the widescreen version that presents the film in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1. I do give Columbia/TriStar credit, though: the menu screen that offers the choice between widescreen and "full screen" illustrates the choices with screenshots that vividly demonstrate how much of the film is lopped off in the pan-and-scan version.

The image is clean, with a just touch of noise appearing here and there, along with some edge enhancement that's noticeable in some scenes but fairly unobtrusive in others. Overall, the colors look nicely rich and natural, and the image presents a satisfactory level of detail. The widescreen image is anamorphically enhanced.

Audio

The Dolby 5.1 soundtrack for I Capture the Castle offers a pleasing audio experience. This mainly dialogue-centered film doesn't make much use of the surround channels, but we do get some nice ambiance with the musical score. Dialogue is always clear and easily understandable.

Extras

The main special feature for I Capture the Castle is an audio commentary from the film's writer, director, and producer. We also get a short (eight-minute) interview with Romola Garai, and five deleted scenes, including a very slightly different alternate ending. Finishing up the special features is a section of trailers for I Capture the Castle, Mambo Italiano, Once Upon a Time in the Midlands, and Whale Rider.

Final thoughts

I Capture the Castle is a puzzling film, one that seems as though it ought to work very well, but that left me completely cold. It's a polished and generally well done film, though, so if you are fond of any of the actors or if you just think you might like it, it's a reasonable rental choice.