Roald Trip

After seeing the amazing musical production of Matilda in London, I decided to throw the 1996 film adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel into my Netflix queue. I didn't expect it to be anywhere near as good, but I had heard it was an entertaining film with appeal beyond a child audience.

This film was directed by Danny Devito. He also stars along with his real life wife Rhea Perlman as the parents of young Matilda, an unappreciated child whose voracious love of learning leads to a discovery of telekinetic powers. The movie diverges somewhat from that of the book (which, not having read it, I believe the musical struck more closely to), but the overall essence of the tale is still intact.

The film does not whitewash the dark nature of the story. The treatment of poor Matilda throughout the story is quite honestly abusive, though her bright attitude and the light touch of the writing does manage to make a dark comedy of it. There's no Hollywood attempt to take the edge off any of this; her parents, her brother, her school principal, her situation, is horrible. But the fun flies high as well. The mischief and camp of the story is fully on display too.

The cast of the film is solid. Devito and Perlman are excellent weasels as Matilda's parents. Young Mara Wilson is wonderfully loveable and easy to cheer for as the title character. Pam Ferris is a perfect villain as school principal Miss Trunchbull, and Embeth Davidtz is a lovely light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel as teacher Miss Honey.

It's really a nice movie all around, if not quite exceptional. Though I do have to wonder how much of that opinion was colored by having seen the musical, which is simply transcendent. I mean, it was "I think it's even better than The Book of Mormon" good, which is automatically going to make any other telling of the story seem deficient by comparison... maybe even, paradoxically, Roald Dahl's original book.

But for whatever the reason, I ultimately pronounce the movie good but not great. I'd grade it a B. It's certainly worth a viewing, in any case.