Confessed hobbit-lover Anthony Lane gets in some good digs at the expense of The Passion of the Lion in this week's New Yorker:
And so to the conceit that, for decades, has stirred both the souls of the faithful and the loins of professional Freudians: first Lucy, then Edmund, then all four children feel their way uncertainly through the folds of a deep, furry passage and into another world.
Yowza!
And later on:
And, if there is Deep Magic, as Lewis called it, in his tale, it resides not in the springlike coming of Aslan but in the dreamlike, compacted poetry of Lewisâs initial inspirationâthe sight of a faun, in the snow, bearing parcels and an umbrella. That is kept mercifully intact in Adamsonâs movie, its potency enriched by the shy, unstrenuous rapport of his two best performers: Georgie Henley, as Lucy, and James McAvoy, as Mr. Tumnus the faun. The dark joke is that Mr. Tumnus invites Lucy to tea only because he must turn his guest over to the enemy. Thus does Lucy, over toast and honey, learn the lesson known to the heroine of every horror flick: Donât answer the faun.
Sorry, I don't know what came over me. Could you give me hand up?
