Harry Potter and Twilight may be all the rage in the recent barrage of young adult novels made into films, but if I were to join any of the coming-of-age fantasies currently gracing our big screens, Inkheart would be the one I would choose. Based on the series of young adult novels written by Cornelia Funke, Inkheart proposes a reality in which certain individuals posses the gift of being able to bring books to life by reading them out loud. You read the first chapter of The Wizard of Oz; you get a flying house, a little dog, and a cyclone. You read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; you get a raft, an escaped slave, and the Mississippi River. You read about Prince Charming; he literally comes waltzing right into your living room.

As a child who spent my days reading fairytales and imagining that I was a part of them, the idea of actually being able to inhabit the tales that I was only able to pretend were my life is like a dream come true. Of course as Inkheart show us, the reality isn't quite the dream it might seem. Along with cute dogs, you also get flying monkeys. Part of the fairytale-princess package deal is at least one wicked witch. Add to that the pesky little detail that whenever someone or something comes out of the world you read, someone or something must go in. And so begins Inkheart.

As the movie's narrator tells us when the movie begins, some do not even know that they have this gift until it's too late. For Mortimer "Mo" Folchart (Brenden Fraser), too late is when one night's reading of a book titled Inkheart brings to life almost the entire cast of villains and takes his wife away. After twelve years of searching for another copy of the book so he can read his wife back into his world and finally give his now-teenaged daughter Meggie (Eliza Hope Bennett) the mother she has never known, he finds a one. But let's just say he's not the only one with an interest in reopening a portal between the real world and the world of Inkheart. And so, with a cast of villains eager to embrace the fullness of their evil power hot on his trail, Inkheart's flawed fire-blowing protagonist Dustfinger (Paul Bettany) desperately trying to get home to his wife and children, and an eccentric great aunt (Helen Mirren) and teenage member of Ali Baba's Forty Theives to boot, Mo and Meggie set off to try to restore reality and fantasy to their proper realms.

Ultimately dealing with themes of destiny and predetermination versus free will and choice, Inkheart is kind of like a fairytale version of Stranger Than Fiction. Caught between the weak and selfish character he was written to be and the man he is called to be, Dustfinger spends almost the entire film struggling to believe that he can be more than who he has always seen himself to be. And in much the same way as Stranger Than Fiction's Harold Crick, Dustfinger must also face the option of running in the opposite direction or choosing the paths he knows he must... even if death is where they will end.

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