Roald Dahls Matilda the Musical Review: Kids Win the Day in This Perky Adaptation, but Emma Thompsons Trunchbull Is the Real Triumph – Variety

What children love about Roald Dahls books is the very thing other writers tend to dodge when adapting them: that icy, unapologetic streak of misanthropy, so exhilarating to kids who have been instructed to see the good in everyone, opening their eyes to the nastier, more ironic adult world that awaits them. Even the craftiest, classiest Dahl adaptations tend to mollify that cruelty somewhat: Nicolas Roegs The Witches is viciously frightening but tacks on an unmitigatedly happy ending, while Wes Andersons Fantastic Mr. Fox muffles the violent survivalism of its source tale with its directors more gently quirky world-building. Already based on one of his kindlier stories, Roald Dahls Matilda the Musical further softens matters by pruning the presence of its funniest adult grotesques to accommodate more childs-eye exuberance. The long-late author probably would have grumbled; young viewers will be delighted nonetheless.

And yet, even as its script dictates otherwise, grownups still get the upper hand in director Matthew Warchus bouncy screen transfer of his hit stage musical. 12-year-old Alisha Weirs agreeably precocious title character and a large, eager ensemble of self-proclaimed revolting children fill the screen in one busy number after another, as they vocally stand up for kids right to be kids in the face of authoritarian adult opposition only for Emma Thompsons towering, truck-jawed antagonist to rather greedily pull focus from them with each rancorous line reading. The film, on balance, is cheery, sherbet-colored stuff, bursting with goodwill for all good people. What you remember from it, however, is each scene in which elder malevolence deliciously spoils the party.

That balance, correct or otherwise, isnt likely to diminish the cross-family appeal of this years London Film Festival opener when it reaches audiences in December via Sony in the U.K., and Netflix elsewhere. When it cannily hits the streaming platform on Christmas Day, Matilda could well grow into a phenomenon especially in Britain, to which the film has been uncompromisingly tailored. (That makes sense, given that with a four-year Broadway run, the musical was merely a success Stateside; still going in the West End after 11 years, its an institution at home.) Thatll come as a relief to any purists who objected to Danny DeVitos brashly Americanized 1996 film of Dahls book. This Matilda Wormwood drinks tea and eats Cadbury Curly-Wurlies in a corner of suburban England that is updated in its social diversity but otherwise carefully era-non-specific. No cellphones or computers in sight here: all the better to encourage our heroines prodigious book-reading.

Cutting the long, episodic setup of Dahls story and hewing close to his own Tony-winning stage book, screenwriter Dennis Kelly skips right past Matildas life-changing discovery of literature, instead taking her advanced genius as, well, read. Also getting short shrift here are her gleefully vulgar, anti-intellectual parents, to the extent that all their numbers have been excised from Tim Minchins fizzy song score a shame, really, given how riotously theyre played by an ideally cast Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough, who at least luridly make off with the few scenes theyre given.

But theres little time to waste in this restless two-hour movie, with Matilda soon bundled off to school (years overdue, not that her parents care) at the appropriately named Crunchem Hall. There, her extraordinary smarts immediately attract the admiration of nurturing teacher Miss Honey (a lovely Lashana Lynch, suitably sweet but never cloying) and the hostile ire of child-loathing, athletics-loving principal Miss Trunchbull (Thompson, perma-clad in a tank-shaped wax jacket that represents the peak of Rob Howells playful costuming). Those familiar with the stage show arent in for any great surprises from here on, as Matildas overly foreshadowed discovery of telekinetic powers upends the Trunchbulls reign of terror, while Kellys ornate story-within-a-story exposition framework one of the shows wobblier innovations makes a somewhat clunky return. Only the gaudily elaborate CGI of the climax veers from expectations.

Thats no complaint, since Warchus film mostly thrives on what already worked on stage: the speedy lyrical wordplay and energetically shouty delivery of Minchins songs, the deliberately heavy-footed stompiness of Peter Darlings choreography and the booming pantomime presence of its villain and, lets be honest, star attraction. Relishing a role conventionally played in drag on stage, hulking into each of her scenes with enhanced arms akimbo, Thompson is entirely a scream, whether throwing herself into grand-scale slapstick or putting a snide, venomous spin on kid-targeted putdowns like, He should have thought of that before he made a pact with Satan.

If that sounds less funny written down, Thompsons eccentric physical and verbal tics provide the bulk of the laughs in an adaptation that goes light on Dahls more raucous humor. Irish-born Weirs Matilda is an appealingly serious, watchful presence, though the film stresses the characters earnestness over her more wry impulses. Indeed, even as large collective numbers like Naughty and Revolting Children espouse the virtues of stepping out of line, the enthusiastic, exactingly on-their-marks young ensemble could have been directed to be a little more unruly.

The filmmaking, too, wants for a bit of anarchy, or at least some itchy verve. Tat Radcliffes lensing looks airbrushed and a little over-bright; Melanie Ann Olivers editing moves at a brisk, even pace, but never quite kicks to the rhythm of the music. A gifted stage director who brought tactile period texture to his last film Pride, Warchus here doesnt demonstrate quite the cinematic ingenuity to make a great screen musical: Bar the odd glittery switch between inner and outer consciousness la Rob Marshalls treatment of Chicago, the showpiece numbers here arent vitally reimagined for simultaneously widescreen and close-up possibilities.

Still, it feels churlish to carp too much about a lively, likable film that sincerely celebrates youthful imagination and joy, and is surely to spark those qualities in a large proportion of its audience even if its most fun when its least inspirational. Title notwithstanding, Roald Dahls Matilda the Musical isnt really Dahls at all, but a good-humored, humane and appropriately accommodating update of a story that, now to a few generations of readers and viewers, feels very much like their own. If it leaves some feeling that, multiple adaptations later, the book still tells it best, Matilda Wormwood would surely agree.

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Roald Dahls Matilda the Musical Review: Kids Win the Day in This Perky Adaptation, but Emma Thompsons Trunchbull Is the Real Triumph - Variety