She's in virtually every scene and has a lot of different emotions to get across as well as having to have significant interaction with CGI creations like her spirit animal Pan (the ubiquitous Freddie Highmore) and the polar bear played by Ian McKellen. It will work or not for people based on whether you like her. This is just as well as the film is really entirely on her shoulders.
Precocious and feisty without seeming too forced she is generally believable whether is her rebellion or her loyalty. While the first two Potter films and Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe were significantly hampered by the incredibly mannered, unrealistic, wooden acting of the young leads (most of the Potter cast got better, time will tell on Narnia) Richards is a winner from the outset. Dakota Blue Richards is a great find as Lara. You know he's a villain from the moment he enters frame. Meanwhile Simon McBurney is magnificently slimy and loathsome as the magisterium main face. There's something indelibly creepy about her rigid manner that works for the elegant but sinister Mrs Coulter. That sonorous voice sneaking out from underneath that bushy moustache feels exactly right for Lee Scorsby. He feels set up for a more significant role in future instalments. Green is suitably witchy and Craig makes an impact in his one/two dialogue scenes early on which, along with a couple of wordless inserts of his storyline, put him enough into your mind to wonder about him. However Daniel Craig and Eva Green are barely in it and Christopher Lee has one blink-and-you'll miss him scene. Nicole has the most significant work and Sam Elliott, while a late arrival, is a great presence once he's around. On the cast, I don't know how it works in the book but the adults are barely in this. I have to say i haven't read the books so can't comment on a book to film comparison. A really entertaining and immersive film that intelligently builds a fantastical world that the uninitiated can marvel and thrill in. I went in cynical about this, especially after the travesty that was the Narnia film, but i was quickly converted: it's great fun.
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