Matilda is not without a certain charm, a charm that has you take to it come the death. You sense that children watching it will enjoy the way it depicts imperialistic grown ups implementing their rule upon young kids, of whom appear to think they know the way of the world, and then later failing to hold up said values as the tots, or singular 'tot', garner revenge and strives to put everything straight in the way they initially envisaged. There is enough to watch and get involved in, a Carrie-esque spin on what would normally be described as Disney does Kitchen Sink drama, as lowly people get in foggy circumstances and expressing their philistinism at any occasion they get - the Home Alone inspired finale does not do enough to extinguish what is a colourful comedy-drama about some rather delicate issues thrust through a tough blender.
True, the film is about a very young child getting their own way over certain adults; but when their respective 'own way' is as indelible and forward thinking as it is in Matilda, who's complaining about, or indeed accusing, the text of exuding disrespect towards superiors whilst neglecting authority? In the case of the Danny De Vito directed 1996 film Matilda, those adults are narcissistic parents and tyrannical head-teachers; head-teachers so stubborn that, in spite of the fact the film unfolds in America, make it so that the doors to their offices sport the very British "Headmistress" engraved on a plaque as opposed to the more American "Principal". Later on, we find out such a Headmistress, Mrs. Trunchbull (Ferris) even represented Great Britain at the 1972 Munich Olympics in the Shot Put discipline - one wonders if Team GB's true-to-life athlete from that year in that event ever got round to seeing De Vito's film, and if so, at all got a kick out it.
But we'll come to said headmistress. First and foremost, there is Matilda, who is deftly played by a certain Mara Wilson. Matilda is the daughter to Zinnia Wormwood (Perlman) and Harry Wormwood, played by Danny De Vito in a role thus seeing him contribute to the film in one of three capacities (the others being the narrator, who's incarnation is not linked to the body of the movie, and that of the aforementioned director). When we first witness her coming into contact with Harry and Zinnia on the day of her birth, we observe how different they both look in comparison to the other parents at the hospital whom are welcoming newborns; maybe it has something to do with the fact the Wormwoods' first born, Matilda's older brother Mikey (Levinson), arrived before her and had all of that attention and love parents lavish upon their babies, whereas those other newfound folks are here experiencing it for the first time. Whatever it is, and in spite of the fact it is no excuse at all, the fondness for childcare and such has long since evaporated from the Wormwoods as we witness Matlida develop through the stages of growth into an infant.
In this sense, she had to, because any other child would have died. Her father, Harry, is a short and stocky individual; a slimy and fast-talking businessman; an optimisation of greed, a man about as oily and greasy as the mechanical interiors to those second-hand cars he flogs to unsuspecting customers when many-a thing are wrong with them. Zinnia, her mother, is a stick-thin beauty obsessed vanity piece with a thick New York City accent and an enclosed mind to match; a woman too old to be dressing as loosely as she does and too ignorant to anything to notice everything that is wrong around her. What little joy she has with her parents during the early stages of her life occurs when she plays practical jokes on them; a scene at a restaurant after they've all gone out for dinner begins with a shot of a tray of cakes being wheeled out of the kitchen and around the bunched up tables – then we realise Matilda's father has his hat stuck to his head on account of some super glue, and if we cannot anticipate the messy end to the scene involving said cakes, we just aren't trying hard enough.
It is whilst at school that the events which set in motion Matilda's change in life occur, only it is initially a school run by the aforementioned Agatha Trunchbull and it isn't so much a school as it is a prisoner of war camp - a place with high fences accompanied by barbed wire; a solitary confinement room as well as, and it'll probably upset others more than it did me, a large brick chimney on top of one of the more lower key structures in the compound which acts as a somewhat misplaced piece of concentration camp-like iconography. At school, she meets the wondrous Miss Honey who's played by actress Embeth Davidtz of whom, rather unfortunately in its keeping up to speed with the previous point, three years earlier starred in Schindler's List. Miss Honey is Matlida's teacher; a prim, slim and elegant person; an intelligent woman with a delicate look about her, someone is stark contrast to Trunchball's big blundering brute of an authoritarian – where Miss Honey will waltz around her classroom clutching a flower by its stem implementing education, Trunchball will stomp around the playground wielding a riding crop instilling fear. The film is one of the more uplifting movies about human suffering, a piece with a nihilistic edge seemingly desperate to burst out but settling for something fantastical and rounded so as to not be too divorced from its audience. It's a very difficult film to hate, a very easy film to get into but a tough film to feel an awful lot more than indifferent about.
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