‘The Witches’ — new Dahl adaptation plays it for laughs
Roald Dahl was the king of villainy when it came to conjuring up antagonists to instill fear in the hearts of the children reading his books. In “The Enormous Crocodile,” for example, a villainous creature cleverly disguises himself to get near enough to the kids he wishes to devour. And few fictional characters are as terrifying as Agatha Trunchbull in “Matilda.”
Perhaps that’s why, when I found myself laughing in the cinema during the screening of Robert Zemeckis’ adaptation of Dahl’s book “The Witches,” I was slightly surprised.
There is nothing especially comedic about the story’s main antagonist, The Grand High Witch, a cruel and dangerous creature who rules over a coven of other witches and wants nothing more than to eradicate every child on the planet via a magical potion that has the ability to turn them to mice. However, watching the sadistic monster, portrayed by a delightfully campy Anne Hathaway, struggle to pronounce the word “garlic” in a German (or Slavic?) accent, one couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. Even the scenes that were intended to be scary had a comedic effect. The film, which is narrated by Chris Rock, tells the story of a nameless young boy (Jahzir Bruno) — refrerred to as ‘Boy’ — who, after tragically losing both his parents in a car accident, goes off to live with his grandmother (Octavia Spencer) in the deep American South. Grandma recounts stories of her own encounters with witches — demons who hate children.
After learning that there are witches residing in their town, the pair of them seek refuge in a swanky hotel where the boy unwittingly stumbles upon a conference of witches led by the Grand High Witch.
The boy gets transformed into a mouse, along with Bruno, a British kid staying at the hotel. And it turns out that Daisy, the hero’s pet mouse, had already been a victim of this transformation. The three CGI rodents scurry around the majestic hotel to try and save the children of the world from the evil witches’ plan to turn them all into mice. While Zemeckis’ version of Dahl’s story is certainly fun — mostly due to Hathaway’s fantastic performance — it lacks the menace of Nicolas Roeg’s 1990 adaptation featuring Anjelica Huston. The 2020 remake is more clearly directed towards children, but those seeking a scarier film might find themselves more satisfied with Roeg’s effort.
While Zemeckis’ version of Dahl’s story is certainly fun, it lacks the menace of Nicolas Roeg’s 1990 adaptation.