Jeff Wells is half right when he says “There’s a new Best Supporting Actress contender in town…10 year-old Georgie Henley, the soul and natural light-beam of ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’…came out of nowhere…but she’s Drew Barrymore in “E.T.” without the cloying I-know-I’m-cute-and-you’re-going- to-adore-me attitude.
“Henley’s serene little-girl aura…her beauty, obvious intelligence, cultured British accent, etc…plus the generosity of feeling from within make for a potent combination.”
Henley is nowhere near a Best Supporting Actress nomination (especially with co-star Tilda Swinton chewing the scenery), but she is one of the cutest and most talented youthful actor discoveries in a long time.
“The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” is inevitably going to find itself compared to Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” franchise. And in the wake of those films, it will likely come off as old news to an Academy so desperately out of touch with depth of cinema over external labeling.