This film is being screened as part of the 2022 BFI London Film Festival. You can find all of our coverage of the festival here.
12 years since its debut before becoming a worldwide phenomenon, this year’s London Film Festival kicks off with the highly anticipated adaptation of the stage musical of Roald Dahl’s classic.
★★★★✰
Kicking off this year’s festival proceedings is the long-awaited adaptation of the hit stage musical Matilda, based on Roald Dahl’s beloved 1988 children’s novel of the same name. We already have a film version from 1996 from Danny DeVito, that it’s important to note is not related to this. Reuniting the core creative team behind the original production in director Matthew Warchus, screenwriter Dennis Kelly, and the show’s composer-lyricist Tim Minchin (who has penned new songs for this version), Roald Dahl’s Matilda is a boisterously joyful film that stays faithful in capturing the rebellious mischief of Dahl’s titular character, delighting fans but also injecting new leases of life in an over 30-year-old tale for newcomers.
Following a sprightly opening number (‘Miracle’) serving as a riotous extended prologue introducing Mr and Mrs Wormwood (Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough) who have zero interest in the birth of their new baby girl in contrast with other delightful new parents and doctors surrounding them, we fast forward to Matilda (Alisha Weir) living miserably with her parents. They refuse to send her to school and she is left feeling unwanted despite her precocious intellect, a hungry appetite for reading books, and a gifted ability for storytelling. After a noteworthy visit from the authorities questioning Matilda’s lack of school placement, they hastily sign her up for Crunchem Hall — an English manor school that has the gothic architecture akin to Count Olaf’s home in the TV adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events — where her new teacher Miss Honey (Lashana Lynch) and fellow classmates are quickly astonished by her mathematical and literature prowess. But the school’s child-hating, education condemning and tyrannical headmistress Agatha Trunchbull (Emma Thompson), who hands out outlandishly cruel punishments to students including locking them inside a tiny cupboard in the woods nicknamed the Chokey, despises Matilda’s assertiveness and camaraderie in rebelling against the rules and devises wicked lessons to reassert her authority.
The rest of the film’s plot remains loyal to Dahl’s book in its utopian sensibility regarding school being visioned as a joyous place for educational development and that even the most unwanted folk in the world will eventually find a much-loved home for them. In a modern society that continues to be an unforgiving place for some, Matilda is not only a form of musical escapism but a reminder of Dahl’s universal themes to touch our current reality even if the story itself might seem archaic in its binary opposites. Musical numbers such as ‘Naughty’ and ‘When I Grow Up’ — brilliantly directed by Warchus and edited with a terrific sense of rhythm by Melanie Oliver — tap into these themes through their childlike innocence with the former channelling Matilda’s copious desire for change and the latter being about aspirations even if the world is aligned unfairly around them.
Incidentally, Lashana Lynch continues her hot streak of recent roles in No Time to Die and The Woman King by bringing some surprising emotional depth and solemnity to Miss Honey amidst the character’s warm inviting persona. Lynch’s performance in the song ‘My House’ is astonishing as she beautifully captures her humble attitude personified by the acceptance of her house being “not much but it is enough for me” is hiding an emotional fragility from her childhood underneath that is immensely heartbreaking.
This is a family film, and there are moments of immense enjoyment that will bring sheer delight to a viewer of any age. Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough are clearly having comedic fun as Matilda’s pompous middle-class parents; Graham’s cockney accent perfectly accentuating Mr Wormwood’s vile character in the manner of a pantomime villain. Equally as enjoyably mad onscreen is Emma Thompson whom, despite her illustrious career, had the most to prove as Miss Trunchbull is traditionally a role performed in drag onstage — memorably by Bertie Carval during the show’s early stints — and requires powerful, fearsome vocals. For arduous fans, these fears will instantly melt away thanks to some terrific prosthetic work and costume design by Rob Howell as well as a delicious performance by Thompson in carefully balancing the darkness of Trunchbull with the camp silliness in her theatricality alongside some searing vocals.
But the real stars of Matilda include Alisha Weir in a breakout performance as the young intellectual bright spark brimming with wit, charm, pathos. There’s plenty of cheek alongside the impressive ensemble of schoolchildren extras throughout the film. Musical numbers like the tongue-twisting ‘School Song’ and ‘Bruce’ with Busby Berkeley inspired staging (special mention goes to Charlie Hodson-Prior during this number) and the rousing ‘Revolting Children’ all expertly choreographed by Ellen Kane will not be as energetically fabulous and engrossing to watch without them.
Sometimes the film’s pace feels slightly disjointed particularly when it maintains a crucial dual-narrative between the happenings at school and Matilda telling a story about a world-famous acrobat and escapologist couple to librarian Mrs Phelps (a brief but lovely turn from Sindhu Vee), especially as it stays cryptic in its meaning until later in the film. But consider this a minor quibble in a musical adaptation that is, overall, a triumphant success. A crowd-pleasing curtain-raiser that sets a high bar for the rest of the festival.
The Verdict
Musically enchanting, terrifically performed by a fully committed ensemble and unashamedly Dahl to the end, Roald Dahl’s Matilda will bring gleeful smiles and a little bit of naughtiness for its audiences. An effortlessly entertaining opening night treat.
Words by Theo Smith
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