Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical: Just say Yes!

The movie Matilda the Musical is an adaptation of the 2011 stage musical which in turn is an adaptation of the 1988 Novel Matilda by Roald Dahl.  This is the second movie adaptation, the first was a 1996 film starring child star Mara Wilson as the title character. I am a fan of that movie and have been wanting to see the stage production, but haven’t had a chance yet, so I was very excited to learn of the movie production.  I was not disappointed.  With the same quirkiness that Dahl’s work is notorious for, the absurdity of the situation is an exaggeration of every child’s fears and every child’s dreams.

Matilda (Alisha Weir) is born into a non-loving family, her mother (Andrea Riseborough) refused to believe she was pregnant even up to the point of giving birth and her father (Stephen Graham) wanted a boy so badly that he refuses to address Matilda as his daughter.  The couple are nefarious and show no love or kindness to their only child and miss the indications that their daughter is very, very special, with a big heart, huge imagination, and genius level intellect, plus later we discover telekinetic abilities.  Matilda begins school at Crunchem Hall whose headmistress is a mean hulking bully of a woman named Agatha Trunchbull (Emma Thompson) that believes the only way to teach children is with punishment, this is starkly contrasted by Miss Honey, the most wonderful and kind teacher, who immediately sees just how amazing Matilda really is.  The story is really a tale of standing up for yourself and following your heart and doing what is right, summed up in the lyric “Nobody but me is going to change my story…”.

The production value on this movie is quite high with a really top-notch cast which includes the amazing Emma Thompson as Agatha Trunchbull, the meanest headmistress ever imagined, who was an Olympic hammer thrower and routinely throws children in the same fashion as she uses to throw hammers. It is hard to even recognize Emma in this part, with excellent make-up, costume, and prosthetics. The lead, Alisha Weir, is amazing and both strong in spirit and tender in soul.  She sticks up for her fellow classmates and protects them in a way that she was never protected.  The school becomes her family, quite literally, and for the first time she feels connected to others. The rest of the cast is also aptly chosen with some great songs and dance numbers being performed by the young cast.  The film flows well and is heartwarming, we are reminded along the way that not all stories end happily, but this one does!