“Matilda the Musical,” January 25, 2023 (2022), Netflix. We enjoyed this bit of comic fantasy although I’ve never been fond of psychic skills and telekinesis as plot devices. This is a very witty musical version of the Roald Dahl children’s novel. I almost called it a ‘classic’ tale of good triumphing over evil, but really, it was published in 1988. Too soon? And it’s smart enough to know that good is only part of an equation and that, for children, it must include the right to be “a little bit naughty.”
Matilda Wormwood (Alisha Weir) is the astoundingly precocious child of two wonderfully cretinous, selfish, and utterly dishonest parents (Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough). Kept from school, she is, with the assistance of a kind librarian (Sindhu Vee), an autodidact, but that understates the case. She also doesn’t take the abuse she suffers lying down.
Facing legal action, her parents send her off to the Trunchbull Academy run by the grotesque, cruel, child-hating, and more than a little pathetic, Agatha Trunchbull (Emma Thompson). However, Matilda’s in the class of the loving and kind, Ms. Honey (Lashana Lynch). It’s there that she comes to understand her powers (and yes, they’re in the book) and, most importantly, to confront Ms. Trunchbull and help her classmates to free themselves. Ok, sorry for the spoilers but you knew these things already.
Enjoy this one for what it is as good eventually triumphs over evil in very funny ways.