Pan's Labyrinth *** 1/2

Guillermo del Toro's foreign-language film Pan's Labyrinth is one of the best-reviewed films in recent memory, and I fully expected it to live up to its billing. This dark and moody film, set in Spain during World War II, follows young Ofelia and her pregnant mother as they join her new stepfather at his military outpost in the forest. Franco's fascists have just won the Spanish civil war, and her stepfather is trying to mop up the remaining insurgency. With the horrors of war around her, a cruel and sadistic stepfather, and a mother struggling with a difficult pregnancy, young Ofelia escapes often into the fantasy worlds of the books she treasures.

The film moves seamlessly between the real world and Ofelia's imaginary one. And some of the creatures that inhabit the latter are truly unique, from the ambiguously helpful Pan figure (referred to instead as a fauna in the original Spanish, apparently) to the effectively horrifying Pale Man. The Pale Man's demented story is told very briefly and completely visually in one of the film's most effective sequences.

Ironically, this top-notch sequence leads directly into one of my biggest complaints about the film, a turn of the plot that is completely out of character for Ofelia. What she does seems to serve no purpose other than adding conflict that would not have been there otherwise. It feels forced rather than organic to the plot. And back in the real world, the housekeeper has her own forced moment that makes no sense logically. In both cases, these nonsensical turns of events seemed almost like lazy writing.

The acting is well-done all around; even the mostly one-dimensional stepfather gets to show the barest amount of humanity once or twice, even if we don't feel the least bit sorry for him when he does. And the direction and cinematographer are very effective as well. However, this visually stunning mix of fantasy and reality ultimately falls a little short. It's still a very good atmospheric film, but the script needed one more rewrite for the two or three plot holes that bothered me. Don't go in expecting the greatest film of the season; go in expecting an entertaining and well-made film.