Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical (2022) - Movie Review

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 Woman King (2022) - Movie Review

Films like this make me kinda nervous as far as writing what I actually think about them. Yeah, there’s my previously-mentioned insecurity when it comes to discussing stories and ideas connected to Black cultures, which I genuinely think I’ve dropped the ball on around here a number of times, but there’s also the historical side of things as well. Long before this film saw release over here in Australia, it came under heavy controversy for its historical inaccuracies, to the extent that it airbrushed the involvement of Dahomey, the West African nation that the film is centred on, in the Atlantic slave trade.

Now, whenever dealing with films based on historical events, I tend to lean on the side of “this is a film, not a documentary” when processing what’s on-screen. I often feel like I’m stretching my abilities when talking cinema as is (hello imposter syndrome, my old friend), let alone feigning knowledge about history that I do not possess, outside of some light Googling out of sheer curiosity; this should not be mistaken for a lengthy education on such things. Between that and the regularity with which cinema, particularly in the mainstream, glosses over the messier parts of the subject matter, I don’t feel comfortable judging it on those standards. I especially don’t like the idea of a film like this being put under some ‘model minority’ scrutiny bollocks, where it’s expected to do better than those whose diversions tend to fly under the radar more times than not.

So, what I’m going to do with this film is to discuss it and analyse it as is. While I have done a bit of looking-into concerning the real-world history being shown (and yes, it is a lot to deal with), I am only going to be talking about what is in the film itself. Partly because of my aforementioned reluctance about judging films on anything greater than that, but also because I’m hoping to surprise at least one reader as far as what is actually in the film that everyone and their dog(whistle) is talking about.