Thumbs are up everywhere for the screen transfer of the smash 2013 Broadway take on Roald Dahl’s 1988 novel about a little girl who learns that sometimes it pays to be a little bit naughty.
Know what? The raves are spot on.
Now on Netflix, "Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical" is just the blast of wicked fun we need right now to see out the old year and welcome in the new.
She’s no ordinary child this Matilda Wormwood. Played terrifically and touchingly by Irish tween Alisha Weir, she must face the fact that her birth came as an unpleasant surprise to her mother (Andrea Riseborough), who never even realized she was pregnant. Her dear old dad (Stephen Graham) is also so upset that he’s fathered a girl.
MORE: Review: You've never seen anything like 'Avatar: The Way of Water'What’s a girl to do? Matilda reads, an activity that appalls her parents but that Dahl, who died in 1990, regarded as the best revenge against tyrants.
Childhood trauma hardly seems like a fitting subject for a children’s book, much less a musical. But Dahl always armed his storytelling with a sting. Like Charles Dickens, a favorite author of Matilda’s, Dahl believes there can be no light without first surviving a journey through darkness.
Things come to a head when Matilda is sent to Crunchem Hall, where her hungry intelligence is applauded by a teacher aptly named Miss Honey.
She’s beautifully played by Lashana Lynch, introduced as the new 007 in “No Time to Die” and an action warrior in “Woman King.”
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Here Lynch is all softness and compassion in contrast to vicious headmistress Miss Trunchbull. Emma Thompson attacks the role with bravura comic force and a scary sadistic streak.
In prosthetics and ugly makeup, Thompson clearly relishes playing this gargoyle, done in drag onstage by Bertie Carvel, though it seems unthinkable now to cast a man as a female fiend.
A former hammer thrower, Miss Trunchbull tosses students around by their ears and pigtails or puts them in the chokey, a torture box that strikes fear into the young at heart.
Luckily, Matilda has the levitating power of telekinesis to give Trunchbull a taste of her own bad medicine.
Blending mirth and malice is a lot to accomplish for a musical. But witty lyrics and tunes by Tim Minchin glimmer with Dahl’s roguish mischief. When Matilda and the kids start breaking bad in a romper-stomper dance of defiance called “Revoting Children,“ their words strike a chord:
"We are revolting children!/ We will become a screaming horde!/ Take out your hockey stick, and use it as a sword!/ Never again will we be ignored!/ We'll find out where the chalk is stored/ And draw rude pictures on the board!/ It's not insulting!/ We're revolting!"
Of course, tormenting tykes is no laughing matter. But don’t let the movie’s cartoonish surface fool you. Director Matthew Warchus and screenwriter Dennis Kelly join Dahl in championing a child revolt against unthinking, uncaring grown-ups.
And Weir, a one-girl talent explosion, knocks it out of the park.
Even the film’s too tidy and sugar-coated ending can’t erase the fever for juvenile justice at its core. In characters from Willy Wonka to the Fantastic Mr. Fox, Dahl knew what kids were up against. That’s why he’s penned so many classics.
"Roald Dahl‘s Matilda the Musical" speaks Dahl’s gospel to a whole new generation. For the rebellious kid in all of us, this film feels like an exhilarating gift. Start unwrapping.
