The Secret of Moonacre

The Secret of Moonacre is a 2008 fantasy film loosely based on the 1946 novel The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. The film was directed by Gábor Csupó and starred Dakota Blue Richards in the leading role and with Ioan Gruffudd, Tim Curry, Natascha McElhone and Juliet Stevenson in supporting roles. The film premiered at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the United Kingdom on 6 February 2009 by Warner Bros. Pictures. Plot Maria Merryweather inherits a book after her father's death: The Ancient Chronicles of Moonacre Valley. She reads of the first Moon Princess receiving magical pearls from the moon. At her wedding with a Merryweather, her father, a de Noir, presented the couple with a black lion, while the groom gifted his bride a unicorn. When the princess revealed the pearls, the two families were possessed by greed. Forced to leave her London home, Maria and her governess, Miss Heliotrope, go to stay at Moonacre Manor with her estranged uncle Sir Benjamin Merryweather. Sir Benjamin warns of bandits and instructs Maria to stay away from the forest and the de Noirs, the rival family. After riding with her uncle, Maria hears a distressed cry and sneaks into the forest, where she is surrounded by bandits, including a boy named Robin de Noir. Before they can kidnap her, Sir Benjamin's intimidating black dog, Wrolf, frightens them away.