‘ The Witches’ fails to cast spell
The Witches Rated: PG for scary images/moments, language and thematic elements. Running time: 104 minutes. Available to stream on HBO Max. 6 out of 4
Before it turns repulsive, and before it gets cute, longwinded and tiresome, “The Witches” is a promising story about a little boy who loses everything. As Chris Rock narrates in voice-over, we see his character as a child sitting in the back seat of a car, looking stunned and somber. And then, slowly, the camera turns 180 degrees, and we realize that he is actually upside down, suspended by his seat belt.
He has been in a car accident. His mother and father, who were in the front seat, are dead, and the little boy must go to live with his grandmother. Grandma is played by Octavia Spencer, who is such a good actress — so full of feeling and inner life, with such a depth of experience behind every line she says — that it’s a pleasure to watch her interact with the young actor Jahzir Bruno.
These early moments are rich enough to make you forget the movie’s title and look forward to this story of a traumatized boy’s reawakening under the loving care of his grandmother. But then, the first witch shows up, and that’s when the movie goes to … well, whatever place that witches are from. And it’s not a nice place.
Based on the children’s book by Roald Dahl, “The Witches” takes place in a world where witches find children repulsive and want to eliminate all of them, first by turning them into mice and then by crushing them underfoot. So what bad luck it is that, when Grandma and the boy want to get away from it all, they choose a hotel resort where about 75 witches are gathered for a convention.
Dahl’s “The Witches” was made into a film in 1990 by Nicolas Roeg, whose sensibility was a bit more macabre and less playful than the new version’s director, Robert Zemeckis. But the main difference between the two versions is the advancement of computer technology.
In 1990, with the help of Jim Henson, when Roeg wanted to show a boy turn into a mouse, he had the boy shake a lot, and he used a lot of quick cuts to simulate movement while also relying on costumes, makeup and puppetry. Zemeckis just has to let computer wizardry handle the trans
formation.
Likewise, when the witches take off their wigs and reveal their true faces, it’s clear the 1990 version relied on elaborate makeup. Anjelica Huston, who played the head witch, basically wore an enormous mask. In this version, Anne Hathaway plays the head witch, and most of her transformation is accomplished digitally. Her mouth doubles in width, revealing
lots of extra, sinister-looking teeth.
That might sound preferable, but the sight of Hathaway’s familiar face being radically distorted becomes disgusting. And though it must be admitted that witches are supposed to be disgusting, they’re supposed to be disgusting to people in the movie, not to the people watching the movie — at least not to the extent that viewers want to stop watching altogether.
In that way and others, it’s hard to see who exactly this movie is for. It would probably disturb small children and bore older children and adults. To be fair, the 1990 version of “The Witches” didn’t work, either, so we have a case of two excellent directors being defeated by the same material. This may simply be the case of a book that’s best realized as a book and whose activity is best realized within an individual reader’s imagination.
When it’s not repulsive, “The Witches” drags, but for one brief yet gripping sequence, in which the boy and his friends sneak into the head witch’s hotel suite. This version also deserves credit for restoring Dahl’s original ending, which is mystical and a little painful and has the complexity of good art. But in the end, we’re only talking about maybe 30 watchable minutes in a 104-minute movie.