Rated: PG
Directed by: Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan
Screenplay by: Matt Lieberman, Pamela Pettler
Story by: Matt Lieberman, Erica Rivinoja, Conrad Vermon
Based on Characters by: Charles Addams
Produced by: Gail Berman, Alex Schwartz
Starring: Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloe Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard, Nick Kroll with Better Midler and Allison Janney.
The Addams Family has always been about the dark and creepy; the humour based on the inversion of what is horror and terrible, think spiders being unleashed from under Morticia’s (Charlize Theron) dress to weave together a spider bridge to cross a bottomless pit… Now that’s Addams Family normal. While all that’s sweet and rosy is awful and intolerable, is normal – see spider bridge mentioned above.
Morticia cuts the rose flower leaving the theory stem. That’s how she likes it. Morticia carries a pose of thorny stems as she walks down the aisle to marry her one true love, Gomez Addams (Oscar Issac), ‘To be joined in the damning void of matrimony’. To marry in their homeland before the villagers chase away the scary couple, along with their monstrous guests and bridal party. They must make their way to a safer place where they can be themselves, somewhere to raise a family, somewhere like the state hospital for the criminally insane. In New Jersey. Perfect.
#MeetTheAddams is the tagline for this new animated version, the movie the origins of the Addams, taking the story back to the beginning, to introduce the family once again with the familiar characters captured like Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll), delightful with his, ‘I think I can see my house from here. No, that’s a women’s prison.’
And the children, the memorable murderous Wednesday (Chloe Grace Moretz) and demolition, forever-trying-to-outsmart-and-kill-his-father, Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard).
The film becomes the lead-up to Pugsley’s thirteenth birthday, to complete the Sabre Mazurka in front of all the cousins and monstrous family. To become a man.
There’s more to this film than the inversion of what’s horror and what’s nice, there’s also assimilation and the fight against always having to be the same. Wednesday becomes friends with a normal: Parker (Elsie Fisher). And shows her rebellion by wearing, OMG, a pink unicorn hairclip.
So, yeah, there’s that inversion again. But there’s also acceptance of the individual. I like that in a movie.
Add ‘plastic’ woman, Margaux (Allison Janney) trying to re-model the abode, the casa Addams insane asylum, and you’ve got fun times and a good watch with the kids without being too childish or too adult.
Hell, it’s worth a watch just to see Lurch (Conrad Vernon) done-up like a Christmas tree.
