THE WITCHES, US, 2020. Starring Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, Stanley Tucci, voices of: Chris Rock, Kristin Chenoweth. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. 104 minutes. Rated PG (Mild horror).
So many audiences have read the books of Roald Dahl and have enjoyed the film and stage versions. Think Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. There has also been James and the Giant Peach. And, of course, The Witches, especially the film of the 1990s, starring Anjelica Huston as The Grand High Witch.
For many now adult audiences, that is their version of The Witches. And, so many audiences have made it their own over the past three decades. A remake? Always a challenge.
For one thing, the action has been transferred to the US, to the state of Alabama, and the central characters are African-American, bringing in significant race issues underlying the action.
We are introduced gradually to the themes of witches. A little boy, Raymond, loses his parents in a car accident. Distraught, he is entrusted to his loving but no-nonsense grandma (the always-sympathetic Octavia Spencer). One day, Raymond sees a sinister woman in the local store. It is time for grandma to explain witches to him, especially her encounter as a little girl when her close friend was transformed into a chicken. Not sure about Chris Rock’s voiceover as the adult Raymond.
Actually, the witches are assembling for local activity at a hotel convention – where grandma and Raymond are staying. So begins the Witches action.
Roald Dahl’s books and films are for the young audience, drawing them in, upsetting or scaring them, children defying villains. Non-Roald Dahl readers will be observers more than involved with the witches and their evil. For many, the image of the Grand High Witch is Anjelica Houston. This time she is Anne Hathaway. While she does her Anjelica Huston thing, rather a scenery-chewing performance, she is rather pretty and glamorous (especially compared to all the other witches there to do her bidding). We wished her to be a bit more credibly sinister.
Then, the special effects come into their own with the flair of director, Robert Zemeckis, the witches poisoned by their potions in the pea soup, there you really rising, flying, exploding. And, the Grand High Witch intends to turn all children into mice – which she does, especially Raymond, a rather toffee large English boy who has snobby parents who disdain him as he continually eats, and Raymond’s pet mouse Daisy who turns out to have been transformed earlier by the witches.
Lots of shenanigans, grandma doing her best with the children now turned into mice, building up to a confrontation with the Grand High Witch, especially at the mercy of her pet cat as she turns into a monstrous mouse herself!
This review is written from the point of view of an observer rather than a member of the young audience – many of whom will be scared by the action and the special effects but this reviewer was reassured (perhaps!) by a six-year-old at the session, that she liked it.
Roadshow
Released 10 December
Peter Malone MSC is an associate of Jesuit Media