Vikander hungered for her role

that is life for any young person living in London. I think a lot of girls will relate to her because she’s trying to figure out her life and find her place.’’

Roar Uthaug, the Norwegian director, describes her as ‘‘a normal girl with normal problems, not a superhero, just a bit cooler than us – it’s a sort of coming-ofage story’’.

Soon enough, however, it’s game on. When Lara is called upon by her father’s lawyer and a sinister aunt (Kristin Scott Thomas) to sign his death papers and claim her inheritance, she is presented with a Japanese puzzle she realises may be the key to discovering where he went and what happened to him. After the kinds of trials habitually undergone by avatars – a shipwreck, enslavement by bad dudes, death-defying escape over a waterfall – Lara finds her father living in a cave, half-mad and mumbling about Himiko, the deadly sorceress entombed on the very island where they find themselves.

There is a lot of weight – maybe more than we see in the film – put on the relationship between Lara and the father who ostensibly deserted her. West clearly doesn’t approve of his character, although he doesn’t exactly say so. What kind of father lets his daughter go first over the Chasm of Dead Souls, or whatever it’s called? First across the Floor that Falls Into Nothing? First into every fight?

‘‘I’ve got five kids,’’ he says. ‘‘I try to challenge them physically, to try to make up for the fact they live in London, but his guy does this in the extreme. He’s scholarly but probably also has a military background: I think he’s one of those psycho dads who leave their children on mountain sides to see if they survive. I just like to fantasise I’m that kind of dad.’’

One of Wilton House’s crucial attractions for the film team was it had a crypt in the garden, just as Croft Manor does in the script. As it turned out, the real crypt was too far from the house for the reverse shots, so it has had to be rebuilt halfway along the garden path.

‘‘That’s the madness of this industry,’’ says smiling set designer Gary Freeman, as Vikander walks along that path, wearing an apprehensive expression, for an early scene in the film.

They have already spent four months shooting in South Africa; it’s more massive than it feels here. Uthaug’s calling card for this film was a Norwegian genre film called The Wave.

‘‘Everything here is on a bigger scale,’’ he says. ‘‘But when you get down to it, it’s just about doing each shot. I have a lot of resources to create scale.’’

There are about 200 people eating lunch at the catering tent each day, McCormick estimates. We kick a few set-dressing leaves and watch tiny Alicia Vikander look tough. In another year, we’ll all be in a different world. (M) is in cinemas from tomorrow.