The latest YA novel to be adapted
into a movie is Ransom Riggs’ ‘Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.’ The adaptation, directed by Tim Burton and
starring French actress Eva Green in the role of the titular head mistress of a
creaky old Gothic boarding house on an island off the coast of Ireland, is as
oddly peculiar as its name would suggest.
Best characterized as a dark fantasy/horror film for teenagers, the
movie features children possessing powers or unique characteristics including a
girl who’s lighter than air, a fire starter, an invisible boy, a creator/animator
of creepy objects, a girl with Popeye-like strength and another girl who has a
gaping maw filled with sharp teeth on the back of her head. Weird, huh?
What sick and twisted mind thinks up of this stuff, Ransom Riggs?
Not having read the book, I
enjoyed MPHFPC more than I probably would have had I read it. The tale combines dark fantasy with gothic
elements and sci-fi; the whole conceit of the movie is that these people exist
in a time-loop that restarts every day right before a German bomber plane
destroys their home during WWII. Can you
imagine living the same day over and over, even if you try to live them
differently each time? Like clockwork,
Miss Peregrine winds her pocket watch back each day on the hour so that she and
her children can live on in blissful happiness forever. But there has to be more to the story, you say? It just so happens that Miss P and her
precious charges are pursued by the sinister Mr. Barron (Samuel L. Jackson) and his
cohort, immortal Wights with an army of giant stick-like ‘Hollows” who seek to
regain their human form by consuming the eyes of children, the more peculiar the better.
Refreshing and entertaining,
MPHFPC is also stylish and atmospheric as we would expect from a Tim Burton
film. If I have to characterize the
movie, I would say it has a decidedly creepy Lovecraftian eldritch vibe and
should appeal to those who like their
fantasies a bit off the beaten path by way of the twisted and the macabre.
Grade: B+
Grade: B+
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