Matilda, both the Roald Dahl book and the Danny Devito-directed film version, were foundational texts for me as a kid. One of my first real exposures to autism-coding in storytelling, Matilda was something of a hero of mine growing up. A child brilliant beyond her years, struggling to grow against apathetic parents and a cruel headmistress, at the center of a story all about the evil that is letting children down. Add to that the iconic depictions offered by the film, between Mara Wilson as the ultimate ND avatar in Matilda and Pam Ferris as the stuff of nightmares in Miss Trunchbull, and you’ve got a story that has a sizeable place in my heart. I figured a musical version of that same story would be decent, but only decent. Not something that could wrestle control away from both of those foundations to become… well, my new favourite version of the story.
The music is phenomenal, right off the bat. I know Tim Minchin primarily from what I’ve seen of him from the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Galas that would air on TV every year, with songs like Inflatable You and Canvas Bags. Just for those, he’s alright in my books, but I was not ready for just how good his work would be here. The rhyming in The Smell Of Rebellion, the beautifully executed wordplay in School Song, the emotional gut-punch of My House; this is genuinely impressive stuff. Ditto for how they’re presented, with terrific choreography and staging that shows a near-perfect meeting point between theatricality and the benefits of editing and camerawork that come with the cinematic medium.
The cast for this is equally amazing. Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough as Matilda’s parents are an ideal fit in how gruff and screechy they get, Sindhu Vee as librarian Mrs Phelps holds up some rather important aspects of the film’s approach to storytelling with gusto, and Lashana Lynch as Miss Honey… bloody hell. Showing off a softer side after playing Captains, secret agents, and warriors in recent films, she exudes warmth and kindness and feels at every turn, making for easily her best work to date. There’s also a semi-unrecognisable Emma Thompson as the Trunchbull, who really gets to have fun with the emphasised authoritarianism of the character (yes, even more emphasised than usual), with just a touch of melancholy to her motivations to make something a bit more fleshed out, while still entirely reprehensible.
And then there’s Alisha Weir as Matilda herself, who both as a performance and as a character is what really makes this whole thing come together. Weir is fantastic in the role, embodying childhood mischief and preternatural wisdom with equal flourish, and the amount of emotional impact she can create with just a hug… wow, actual chills just from writing that, and if you’ve seen this, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
But as a character, she is put in a more emphatically revolutionary role as the one who questions the dictatorship in Crunchem Hall and works to set things right, along with an expansion of what the source material gave her. Her love for books has grown into her own budding ability as a storyteller, which not only adds an interesting dimension to her more supernatural powers, but also unites the themes of the book with the therapeutic escapism of musical theatre to highlight storytelling as a healing tool.
It basically took something that I already loved in the source material, and put in even more stuff I love like well-done musical numbers, waxing lyrical about storytelling, and leaning into the anti-authoritarian nature of the story. It likely won’t be able to reach the same iconic status as the ‘90s film version, but in terms of raw catharsis, expansion of narrative themes, and just the sheer joy I experienced while watching it, I gotta be honest and call this the better film.
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