Delightful Dahl (Matilda (DVD))

Member Name: dave27

Product:	Matilda (DVD)
Date:	22/03/04 (1649 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Ferris, Devito

Disadvantages: Miss Honey, sickly, sweet

The works of Roald Dahl almost inevitably make for good films. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (starring Gene Wilder) is a notable exception (at least in my opinion, but it was an awfully long time ago when we were all extremely young and naive), but there have been some wonderful films in the last few years (James And The Giant Peach, The Witches) and Matilda is probably the best of them. The book is ace, and the tape version with Peggy Mount (I think) as the evil Trunchbowl is a great version and sets a great challenge for the film to live up to, but it manages it.

Pam Ferris, she of the Darling Buds Of May TV series and a load of other things of late, but not much which I have really enjoyed, takes the part on the big screen and makes your worst nigtmare come unerringly to life - she's foul. Danny De Vito is the unpleasant Mr Wormwood, the foul father of the Matilda of the title, who is played wonderfully by Mara Wilson.
The acting throughout is a delight and you can easily get well into the playing.

It's got some excellent comic moments, especially the scene with the glue in the hat and the consequent reshaping of De Vito's image, and Trunchbowl's eventual denouement in front of the class is great high entertainment.

The story covers a gifted little child who is born to the Wormwoods, the foullest parents you could imagine, Americans who run a car sales business and swindle customers. Matilda quickly learns to read books from her visits to the library and becomes a demon at Maths, but no one will believe Miss Honey, the teacher who recognises her potential. Miss Honey is actually the niece of the foul Trunchbowl who stole her inheritance from her and cast her out. Together Miss Hone
y and Matilda discover the true extent of the little girl's powers, telekinesis and all manner of other cool stuff and have their revenge.

Probably, The Witches and James And The Giant Peach are better, and more enjoyable films, but certainly Matilda is well worth watching and will provide you with a couple of hours decent viewing. Admittedly, you get loads of precocious sweet kids, with all the gut churning saccharine which that fact normally brings with it, but the works of Roald Dahl always take a far blacker approach to life than is usually the case with adults writing for children. He's a wonderfully gifted writer who manages to think himself into the minds of his subjects and appeal to their unpleasant sides. In addition to which, he also managed to father the gorgeously volutptuous (at least she used to be) Sophie, a real wet dream for old fuddy duddies (Oh dear, where on earth did that come from?)

Suffice to say, that Matilda is a really good book, as wicked and delightful as most of those which Dahl has written, and he's written loads. It provides rich material and entertainment and was simply aching to be transformed to a big screen work. As well as starring as a stereotypical nasty piece of work, Danny Devito is also responsible for the film, directing it and capturing the magic of Dahl to perfection. Devito has a rare gift for managing to capture all that is bad and reprehensible about life (playing most of the scum himself) and has certainly done well with this adaptation, taking things on at a racy pace and making huge capital out of the material at his disposal. For it to work, Trunchbowl and the Wormwoods have to be particularly awful (they certainly are), and he has to get the nicer characters exactly right. Now at times, he strays a little bit too much into nicey nice territory, but on the whole man
ages to keep Matilda and Miss Honey as very sympathetic characters, whom you instinctively find yourself rooting for, despite all your more cynical feelings. Wilson and Embeth Davidtz (who plays Miss Honey) are really good, but it's the nastiness and stomach turning horror of the blacker characters which really sets things off well, and that after all is what Devito is best at.


Director - Danny DeVito, Screenplay - Nicholas Kazan & Robin Swicord, Based on the Novel by Roald Dahl, Producers - DeVito, Michael Shamberg, Stacey Sher & Michael Siegel, Photography - Stefan Czapsky, Music - David Newman, Visual Effects - Cinesite (Supervisor- Chris Watts), Digital Effects - The Computer Film Co, Special Effects Supervisor - Michael Lantieri, Production Design - Bill Brzeski. Production Company - Jersey Films.
Cast:
Mara Wilson (Matilda Wormwood), Pam Ferris (Agatha Trunchbull), Embeth Davidtz (Jennifer Honey), Danny DeVito (Harry Wormwood), Rhea Perlman (Zinnia Wormwood), Paul Reubens (Bob), Tracey Walter (Bill), Kaimi Davael (Lavender), Jimmy Karz (Bruce Bogtrotter), Brian Levinson (Michael Wormwood), Jacqueline Steiger (Amanda Thripp)

http://www.roalddahlfans.com/movies/matirev2.p hp
DeVito was entranced with the idea of playing Harry Wormwood, the crooked car dealer, with Rhea as his wife, the ditsy Zinnia. But he learned that the Dahl Foundation had commissioned a screenplay that was acquired by Universal Pictures. DeVito moved his Jersey Films from So
ny to Universal to prepare the film. Universal passed, and DeVito brought "Matilda" to Sony.
"I made this film for my children ? and myself," he says. "I enjoyed walking that line again, stretching the envelope as far as I could, making it believable and still not damaging anybody."

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