MATILDA THE MUSICAL
Sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty. So sings Matilda in the new musical version of Roald Dahl’s dark and Grimmly fairy tale. She has every right to be mischievous – rejected by her awful parents – the low-life Wormwoods. The young lass has an immense brain and hunger for learning but is sent by her spiteful ma and pa to an establishment that makes Dotheboys Hall look like Disneyworld. The school, or more accurately HM Prison for the under 10s, is presided over by the monstrous Miss Trunchbull. Her regime is one of terror and child humiliation; only the kindly teacher Miss Honey has a heart and OFSTED is nowhere to be seen.
The new movie version of Matilda the Musical places Dahl’s name in the opening credits. Though some liberties are taken with his 1988 book, his fingerprints are all over this story. Children are innately good except when they are corrupted by the mercenary adult world. Parents – and those in authority are thoughtless bullies. But and the but is central to this story, a child has some agency, some means of escape – through their limitless imaginations or in Matilda’s case an inner strength and deeply held sense of justice. She tells stories that grips her friend the mobile librarian; books are central to her young life. They are her refuge. The film under the restless direction of Matthew Warchus, provides a hugely enjoyable, if overlong, take on Tim Minchin’s madly popular musical. We are in a curiously English world, bucolic and quirky with Trunchbull’s overpowering Victorian Gothic pile. The huge classroom of boys and girls are given much exciting choreography and there is more than a nod to Baz Lurhmann in the epic scale of the many dance numbers.
At the heart of this touching tale is Alisah Weir who makes a wonderful job of the put-upon Matilda who gradually finds her voice and magical powers of revenge. She never lets her performance become sugary or cutsie and has a marvellously demonic expression when she begins to exercise her transmutational skills.
Emma Thomspon is utterly scary as the voluminously padded headmistress. She is a demented tyrant. Hats off to Thompson for allowing many a chilling close up of Trunchbull’s savagely brutal mug. Lashana Lynch does a decent job of the sentimental Miss Honey and she has a very lovely singing voice. I loved Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough’s comically horrid and neglectful parents – lots of knockabout comedy, over-the-top fun and a cartoonish portrayal as education-hating dunces. They provide a blackly comedic counterpoint to what is mostly a very disturbing Dahlian view of the world. This is classic fairy tale country – not in the panto sense, but reflecting on the original bitter morality tale of the 18th and 19th centuries.
The movie is perhaps 15 minutes too long – there were moments in the middle of the film where the narrative seemed to grind to a halt before picking up considerable pace by the last third. Minch’s acerbic songs came out well though sometimes his clever words got lost in over-wrought orchestrations.
All that said, this is a great film to see, especially at this time of year. It provides a lot of fun, colour, a touch of horror and the fine portrayal of a child who is more than a little bit naughty.
