Beloved for its depraved irreverence, Matilda has been stirring the naughty imaginations of youngsters the world over since Roald Dahl printed the story in 1988.
It’s precisely the story, with its outlandish characters and over-the-top situations, that lends itself to a musical adaptation, which Dennis Kelly and Tim Minchin very efficiently did greater than a decade in the past.
What’s stunning shouldn’t be that the musical is now a movie however that it took so lengthy to occur – studios love a well-recognized title with a built-in viewers, they’re seemingly much less dangerous propositions.
Of course, the flip aspect of that’s when you’ve one thing of which followers have such a robust impression, you need to nail it, or not less than not stuff it up. Matilda the Musical is someplace within the center.
It’s a toe-tapping and dynamic musical with a contact of caprice. Maybe the whimsy is what’s odd about it, as a result of Matilda must be much less whimsical and extra simply bizarre.
There’s an edge to Dahl’s e-book, a mischievous spirit bordering on vicious. The movie model information that again just a little, perhaps to appease the extra delicate method to youngsters’ leisure in 2022.
But then in different methods, Matilda the Musical is extra emotionally mature and resonant, notably due to a considerate and highly effective efficiency from Lashana Lynch as Miss Honey.
Lynch’s most high-profile roles has been as robust, action-driven characters in No Time To Die, Captain Marvel and The Woman King, and it’s so spectacular to see her because the smooth, introverted instructor.
If, for some wild, inexplicable purpose, you don’t know Matilda, the story is centred on a younger lady with a genius mind. Matilda’s (Alisha Weir) ridiculous dad and mom (Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough) are so preoccupied with their very own vanities they’ve uncared for their daughter and see her solely as a nuisance.
Matilda voraciously reads each e-book she comes throughout, loaning from the cell library of Ms Phelps (Sindhu Vee), escaping into the wondrous worlds of the pages past her dim little life.
When Matilda is distributed to high school, she discovers cruelty within the type of the extreme Miss Trunchbull (Emma Thompson), a headmistress with an intense hatred for kids, or in her phrases, “maggots”.
Trunchbull is a cartoonishly imposing determine who barks pronouncements and goals up horrific punishments for the scholars, similar to time-out within the “chokey”, a barbaric outhouse.
At its core, Matilda is a narrative about kindness successful over malice, however by the wild antics of what occurs when youngsters struggle again towards an authoritarian determine. There’s at all times been a contact of the Peter Pan within the story, however with extra newts.
This movie model captures the verve and vitality of the story, injected with the playful songs of the stage manufacturing.
The performances from Thompson, Graham and Riseborough are excessive camp, the youngsters are charming, and Weir has robust display presence. But it truly is Lynch who’s the MVP, grounding the often-outrageous story with actual emotionality.
Matilda the Musical will not be as fierce and feisty as Dahl’s e-book – nearly each adaptation has toned it down – however it’s nonetheless loads entertaining.
Rating: 3/5
Matilda the Musical is in cinemas now and streaming on Netflix from December 25
