Matilda (1996 Film)

''Matilda'' is a 1996 American fantasy comedy film co-produced and directed by Danny DeVito from a screenplay by Nicholas Kazan and Robin Swicord, based on the 1988 novel by Roald Dahl. The film stars Mara Wilson as the title character, with DeVito himself (who also served a dual role as the narrator), Rhea Perlman, Embeth Davidtz, and Pam Ferris in supporting roles. The plot centers on the titular child prodigy who develops psychokinetic abilities and uses them to deal with her disreputable family and the tyrannical principal of her school.

''Matilda'' was released in the United States on August 2, 1996, by Sony Pictures Releasing under their TriStar Pictures label. The film received positive reviews from critics, with praise being directed towards its faithfulness to the novel and DeVito's direction. Despite this, the film was a box office disappointment, grossing $47 million on a $36 million budget, but ''Matilda'' subsequently attained greater popularity after being released on home video.

Plot

Six-year-old Matilda Wormwood is neglected and mistreated by her parents, corrupt car dealer Harry Wormwood and his wife Zinnia, from the moment she’s born. They frequently leave her home alone to fend for herself and refuse to enroll her in school. Her older brother Michael also mistreats her, often calling her “dip-face” and throwing things at her. Smart and independent, Matilda finds solace in books at the public library from the age of four. She begins to retaliate against Harry's cruelty, first by spiking his hair tonic with peroxide, which causes Harry's hair to turn blonde. She then puts superglue in Harry's hat, causing it to stick to his head, until Zinnia manages to cut it off. After Harry destroys one of Matilda's library books and forces her to watch mindless television, Matilda becomes angry, and the television explodes.

Harry sells a car to Miss Agatha Trunchbull, the tyrannical child-hating principal of Crunchem Hall Elementary School, in exchange for admitting Matilda as a student. The other students warn Matilda about Trunchbull's abusive disciplinary methods, which include throwing students out the window and locking them in an iron maiden known as the Chokey. Trunchbull throws student Amanda Thripp over the fence by her pigtails when she protests taking them out. Matilda's teacher, Miss Jennifer Honey, notices the ease with which Matilda answers middle school multiplication questions and requests Matilda be moved to a higher class, but Miss Trunchbull refuses. She comes to Matilda’s home hoping to convince the Wormwoods, who are not interested as they believe college is unnecessary. Harry gets defensive when Miss Honey suggests he would need the help of a college educated lawyer if he were to be sued for selling a bad car.

One day, Trunchbull calls an assembly in the school auditorium, where she forces an overweight student Bruce Bogtrotter to eat the entirety of a large chocolate cake in front of the entire school as punishment for stealing a piece of hers. With encouragement from Matilda and the other classmates, Bruce manages to do so, without getting sick. Later that day, Matilda discovers her father is under surveillance by the FBI over his illegal dealings, which include purchasing stolen car parts, and using other shady tactics to pawn off old decrepit cars at marked-up prices. Her parents refuse to believe her warning, as Zinnia flirts with the two agents who pose as speedboat salesmen.

Discovering the car from Harry to be faulty, Miss Trunchbull locks Matilda in the Chokey as punishment. Matilda's friend Lavender puts a newt in Miss Trunchbull's water jug as payback. Miss Honey frees Matilda and Trunchbull accuses her of putting the newt in her glass. Refusing to tattle on Lavender, Matilda telekinetically tips the glass over, splashing the newt onto Miss Trunchbull. Matilda is then unable to reproduce her powers to show Miss Honey how she did it. Miss Honey invites Matilda to tea and reveals her past: her mother died when she was two, and her father Magnus, who was a doctor, invited her aunt Trunchbull to live with them to care for Miss Honey, while Magnus was working. Trunchbull abused Miss Honey when Magnus wasn't around, but put on a facade when he was around, and Magnus died, apparently by suicide, when Miss Honey was five. He left everything including the house to Miss Trunchbull in his will, and Truchbull continued to abuse Miss Honey until she grew up, and managed to escape. Matilda and Miss Honey sneak into the house to retrieve some of Miss Honey's belongings, including a special doll from Miss Honey's childhood, but Miss Trunchbull unexpectedly returns and they narrowly escape.

Matilda channels the aggression she gets from Harry and Miss Trunchbull, to practice her telekinetic powers and she drives away the FBI agents, who are searching Harry's garage without a warrant. She returns to Trunchbull's house and uses her powers to claim Miss Honey's doll, and wreaks havoc while posing as the vengeful spirit of Magnus, which nearly scares her out of the house, but Miss Trunchbull uncovers Matilda's ruse upon finding her hair ribbon. The next day, as Matilda gives Miss Honey her doll, Miss Trunchbull visits Miss Honey's class and demands that Matilda confess while threatening to lock her away permanently. Matilda, again posing as Magnus' ghost, telekinetically writes a message on the blackboard. The message accuses Miss Trunchbull of murdering him demanding that she return Miss Honey's house and money and leave town, even threatening to murder her as retribution if she does not do so. Miss Trunchbull becomes terrified and attacks the students in a rage, but Matilda protects them. The students turn on Miss Trunchbull throwing their lunch at her and Bruce shoving chocolate cake in her face. She runs out of the school never to be seen, heard of, or "darken a doorway again."

Miss Honey moves back into her father's house with Matilda as a frequent guest. Harry, Zinnia, and Michael come to take Matilda and flee to Guam to avoid the FBI, who now have enough evidence to arrest Harry for his illegal dealings. Matilda refuses to go, saying she would rather stay with Miss Honey as her adopted child. Zinnia expresses remorse at never having understood Matilda, and she and Harry sign the adoption papers doing "the first decent thing they ever did for their daughter." Matilda goes on to live happily with Miss Honey, who becomes principal of Crunchem Hall, which has an upper school added due to the children never wanting to leave.

Cast

* Mara Wilson as Matilda Wormwood, a 6-year-old girl with special powers
** Alissa and Amanda Graham and Trevor and James Gallagher as Baby Matilda
** Kayla and Kelsey Fredericks as 9-month-old Matilda
** Amanda and Caitlin Fein as 2-year-old Matilda
** Sara Magdalin as 4-year-old Matilda
* Embeth Davidtz as Jennifer Honey, the kind and polite teacher who inspires Matilda
** Amanda and Kristyn Summers as 2-year-old Jennifer
** Phoebe Pearl as 5-year-old Jennifer
* Pam Ferris as Agatha Trunchbull, the abusive, ruthless and tyrannical principal of Crunchem Hall Elementary School and Miss Honey's step-aunt.
* Danny DeVito as Harry Wormwood, Matilda's car salesman father
** DeVito also narrates the film
* Rhea Perlman as Zinnia Wormwood, Matilda's bingo-obsessed mother
* Brian Levinson as Michael Wormwood, Matilda's obnoxious and rude older brother, who enjoys insulting her by calling her 'dipface'.
** Nicholas Cox as 6-year-old Michael
* Paul Reubens and Tracey Walter as Bob and Bill, two FBI agents investigating Harry's illegal car business.
* Kiami Davael as Lavender, Matilda's best friend at Crunchem Hall Elementary School
* Jacqueline Steiger as Amanda Thripp, Matilda's timid classmate at Crunchem Hall Elementary School
* Jimmy Karz as Bruce Bogtrotter, Matilda's heavy set schoolmate at Crunchem Hall Elementary School
* Kira Spencer-Hesser as Hortensia, a schoolmate at Crunchem Hall Elementary School
* Jean Speegle Howard as Mrs. Phelps, the librarian
* Marion Dugan as Cookie, the unsanitary school cook at Crunchem Hall Elementary school
* Jon Lovitz as Mickey (uncredited), the game show host of "The Million Dollar Sticky"

Production

In November 1993, Universal Pictures won a screen adaptation of '' Matilda'' by Roald Dahl, written by writers Nicholas Kazan and Robin Swicord, following a heated bidding war between Universal and Columbia Pictures. Following disagreements between Danny DeVito and Bregman-Baer Productions over budgetary concerns, Universal put ''Matilda'' into turnaround, with Columbia's sister company TriStar Pictures picking up the project.

Miriam Margolyes confirmed that she auditioned for the role of Agatha Trunchbull during a filmed interview with Jo Brand for the UK television special, ''Roald Dahl's Revolting Rule Book'', which was hosted by Richard E. Grant and aired on September 22, 2007. This documentary commemorated Dahl's 90th birthday and also celebrated his impact as a children's author in popular culture. Margolyes went on to play Aunt Sponge (another Dahl villainess) as well as the voice of the Glowworm in '' James and the Giant Peach'', also released in 1996.

DeVito and cinematographer Stefan Czapsky made heavy use of wide-angle lenses and exaggerated perspective, in a manner similar to the films of Terry Gilliam.

Pam Ferris (Miss Trunchbull) incurred several injuries during the production of the film. The climactic scene where she is whacked by blackboard erasers required her to keep her eyes open, causing chalk dust to get caught in her eyes and necessitating several trips to the hospital to get her eyes washed out. The scene where Trunchbull whirls Amanda Thripp (Jacqueline Steiger) by her pigtails required a harness to support the little girl, the wires of which were threaded through the pigtails and then looped around Ferris's fingertips to give her grip. As she swung her around, the centrifugal force grew too great and tore the top part of Ferris's finger, requiring seven or eight stitches.

The Crank House, in Altadena, stood in for Miss Trunchbull's house. The exterior of Matilda's house is located on Youngwood Drive in Whittier, while the library she visits is the Pasadena Public Library on East Walnut Street in Pasadena.

Suzie Wilson, Mara Wilson's mother, was diagnosed with breast cancer in March 1995 during filming, and later died on April 27, 1996, four months before the film's release. The film was dedicated to her memory. DeVito revealed that, prior to her death, he had shown her the final edit of the film so that she was able to see Mara's performance.

Music

Two songs are featured in the film. One of them, " Send Me on My Way" by Rusted Root, is played twice: when four-year-old Matilda is left alone at her house, making pancakes, and at the end of the film, set to a montage of Matilda and Miss Honey playing at Miss Trunchbull's former house. The other song is Thurston Harris's " Little Bitty Pretty One", played when Matilda is dancing in the living room while using her telekinetic powers. The film's original score was composed by David Newman, a frequent collaborator of DeVito.

Release

Box office

''Matilda'' was released on August 2, 1996. It made $8.5 million at the US box office in its opening weekend, ranking in third place behind '' A Time to Kill'' and ''Independence Day''. The film grossed $33.5 million in the United States and Canada and $47 million worldwide against a production budget of $36 million.

Home media

The film was released on VHS in pan and scan and LaserDisc in widescreen on December 17, 1996, from Columbia TriStar Home Video. On June 2, 1997, it was released on a bare-bones dual-sided DVD containing fullscreen and widescreen. Another DVD rendition with more special features was released on June 7, 2005. In 2012, Danny DeVito hosted a Matilda reunion, where some of the cast reenacted scenes from the film. With the 2023 release of the film on Blu-ray in 2013, footage from the reunion was included as an extra. In September 2023, a 4K restoration of the film was released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, which included a Dolby Vision master, HDR10 grades, and a Dolby Atmos audio mix.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, ''Matilda'' has an approval rating of 92% based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Danny DeVito-directed version of ''Matilda'' is odd, charming, and while the movie diverges from Roald Dahl, it nonetheless captures the book's spirit". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 72 out of 100 based on reviews from 21 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "B+" on a scale of A to F. Writing for ''Empire'', Caroline Westbrook gave the film a rating of three stars and praised DeVito's clever direction.

Roger Ebert of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' praised the film's oddity, gave it three stars out of four, and wrote:

See also

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References

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1990s American films
1990s children's comedy films
1990s children's fantasy films
1990s English-language films
1990s fantasy comedy films
1996 children's films
1996 comedy films
1996 films
American children's comedy films
American children's fantasy films
American fantasy comedy films
American films about revenge
Films about bullying
Films about child abuse
Films about children
Films about dysfunctional families
Films about educators
Films about friendship
Films about magic
Films about teacher–student relationships
Films based on children's books
Films based on works by Roald Dahl
Films directed by Danny DeVito
Films produced by Danny DeVito
Films scored by David Newman (composer)
Films set in California
Films set in schools
Films set in libraries
Films shot in California
Films with screenplays by Nicholas Kazan
Films with screenplays by Robin Swicord
Film
TriStar Pictures films
Films about telekinesis
English-language fantasy comedy films