This home’s worth visiting but take care
Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children an entertainingly gonzo Gothic creation from Tim Burton
Tim Burton gets his (almost)full freak on again with Miss Peregrine’s School for Peculiar Children, a supernatural thriller.
Based on the young adult novel by American writer and vintage-photograph collector Ransom Riggs, Burton’s movie really is most peculiar, often weird and occasionally wonderful. So, if you were soured by the director’s reboot of Dark Shadows or bored silly by his collaboration with James Bobin on Alice Through the Looking Glass, it is now safe to go back to one of Burton’s gonzo Gothic creations. It may not rival his classics, but it is entertaining.
The new movie invokes memories of the Harry Potter franchise, for the surreal retro setting and atmosphere, while borrowing themes from the X-Men movies, with their pantheon of mutants. Toss in an appetizing meal of uncooked eyeballs and you drift into the dreamlike reverie of Pan’s Labyrinth.
At the same time, Riggs’ debut novel from 2011 boasts its own originality, and Burton invokes much of what was in the time-travelling book, with some significant creative changes made by screenwriter Jane Goldman (some of which may disturb ardent fans).
The onscreen story of the new movie originates in Florida, in a desultory suburban wasteland like the one Burton endured growing up in California. We meet a teenager (Asa Butterfield from Martin Scorsese’s Hugo). He is obsessed with the tall tales he has heard for years from his eccentric grandfather (the incomparable Terence Stamp, who is still potent and charismatic at 78).
Given that the tales involve death-dealing monsters as well as Miss Peregrine’s orphanage in Wales — where a gaggle of strange youngsters with unique abilities live under her care — the boy, now 16, has trouble believing his grandfather. Especially because his dorkish deadbeat dad (Chris O’Dowd), and dismissive mom (Kim Dickens), do not buy into the fantastical world the old man compulsively conjures up from old photographs and anecdotes.
Tragedy soon strikes. As a result, the dad is goaded into taking his distraught son to Wales on a fact-finding mission, specifically to find Miss Peregrine (the fabulous Eva Green).
Things go terribly wrong, of course. The story is full of strange twists, time-warps, romantic interludes, father-and-son disagreements, ornithological tangents, magical transformations, historical interludes, and a series of dangerous adventures involving the Luftwaffe, a sunken ship, a carnival horror ride in Blackpool, giant monsters and an army of re-animated skeletons.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is worth a visit. Just don’t stay too long. It could be dangerous for your health. BKirkland@postmedia.com twitter.com/Bruce_Kirkland