{"id":146654,"date":"2020-11-20T07:00:50","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T12:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/?p=146654"},"modified":"2020-11-20T16:43:02","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T21:43:02","slug":"a-definitive-ranking-of-roald-dahl-film-adaptations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/electricliterature.com\/a-definitive-ranking-of-roald-dahl-film-adaptations\/","title":{"rendered":"A Definitive Ranking of Roald Dahl Film Adaptations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Roald Dahl holds a special place in my childhood. I still have vivid memories of reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory <\/em>and Matilda<\/em> in school (we even read his rather unsavory memoir Boy<\/em>; his accounts of boarding school bullying haunt me to this day!) and of watching the delightful early ’90s film adaptations of some of his better known works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s no surprise his books have proven fertile ground for both sublime cinematic gems and deliriously horrid film versions. <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I can still trace my love of language to his wordplay-loving novels, many of which I devoured as a young precocious kid. Take The Witches, <\/em>which has just gotten yet another film adaptation. The book is terrifying all on its own given its premise, but it was the language which made me enjoy it all the more, opening up worlds I didn\u2019t know were possible: \u201cA real witch gets the same pleasure from squelching a child as you get from eating a plateful of strawberries and thick cream.\u201d It\u2019s the word \u201csquelch\u201d for me that truly signals why Dahl\u2019s prose was always so wickedly revolting\u2014and I mean that in the greatest sense. Diving into the worlds of Matilda or Charlie or James (or George, from George\u2019s Marvellous Medicine<\/em>, which my third grade class adapted into a play with yours truly in the titular role) was to enter a world where the wonder of childhood was the greatest antidote to the cruelty and capriciousness of adults. Dahl\u2019s books never sugarcoated the ills of the world but presented them instead as dastardly evils in need of being faced and vanquished. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But with characters that include wicked witches with nasty sores on their scalps, prank-prone Twits covered in hair all over, good-natured female spiders and Big Friendly Giants, it\u2019s no surprise his books have proven fertile ground for both sublime cinematic gems and deliriously horrid film versions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For fun, I\u2019ve gone ahead and ranked the many films that have tried to replicate Dahl’s wit and charm on the page. You may find the order revolting, so know it is wholly subjective and driven solely by my whims and desires. Dahl would have it no other way; I am a grown up, after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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15. Four Rooms<\/em> (1995)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Count me among those who never knew (or had selectively forgotten?) that Quentin Tarantino had directed a Dahl adaptation! Except, the more you learn about this ill-fated affair, the more you realize why it\u2019s so seldom discussed. This anthology film\u2014which features segments by Robert Rodriguez, Alexandre Rockwell and Allison Anders\u2014is inspired by the British author’s lesser-known adult short stories. Revolving around guests staying at the Hotel Mon Signor, Four Rooms<\/em> is, perhaps, like all anthology films, only as strong as its weakest entry. And well, when one segment is about a witch trying to secure semen to finalize a potion with her coven that co-stars Madonna… well, you can imagine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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14. Breaking Point<\/em> (1989)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of Dahl adaptations that rarely get talked about: this remake of an adaptation of a short story feels remarkably forgettable. Made for television, this is a competent take on Dahl’s “Beware of the Dog,” a short story about a young pilot who, after a collision, finds himself bedridden, cared for British nurses who seem very interested in his squadron\u2019s location\u2014a detail they insist is moot considering the war (that\u2019d be WWII) is over. But is it? The twist in this thriller is much more effective in the span of a short story (originally printed in Harper\u2019s<\/em>) than in a full-length film, but it may well still pack a punch if you don\u2019t see it coming from a mile away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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13. Roald Dahl\u2019s The Witches<\/em> (2020)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s get this out of the way: the new Robert Zemeckis adaptation of Dahl\u2019s 1983 classic may boast the author\u2019s name in its title, but it is arguably the least Dahl-like of his filmed adaptations. With a screenplay that aims, alternately and incongruously, between being an outlandish campy remake and a grounded scary fantasy adventure, this garish-looking film ends up wasting the thematic potential of pitting a Melania-sounding Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway channeling a \u201cBe Best\u201d sensibility) against a young orphaned Black boy in 1968 in Alabama who\u2019s been turned into a mouse. Neither ridiculous enough to pull off its attempts at absurdity nor committed enough to its \u201860s Southern backdrop, Zemeckis\u2019s film even fails at becoming an enjoyable bad film. It limps along, firmly believing standing apart from the 1990 film of the same name is an accomplishment all on its own. Hathaway\u2019s costumes are fab, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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12. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory<\/em> (2005)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of garish 21st-century takes on Dahl\u2019s work, who could forget Tim Burton\u2019s horrid adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory\u2014<\/em>no matter how hard we try? Turning the central candy maker into a pale, high-pitched loon who couldn\u2019t help echo a certain King of Pop, Burton and star Johnny Depp keyed into Dahl\u2019s cruelty but wrapped it in a wholly unsavory package when re-telling the story of a young, wide-eyed boy who earns a chance to visit the famed Wonka candy factory. Burton\u2019s signature style has worn thin in recent decades, his gothic inspiration giving way to brassy CGI spectacles that feel rather weightless and toothless. This adaptation was no exception, valuing psychedelic art direction and kooky costumes over any and everything else. The line \u201cWhy is everything here completely pointless?\u201d seems more self-aware than Burton and writer John August likely intended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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11. Danny, the Champion of the World<\/em> (1989)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not saying Jeremy Irons\u2019s chiseled cheekbones alone make this take on Dahl\u2019s story about a young kid and his pheasant poacher father endlessly watchable. But I\u2019m also not not <\/em>saying that. A tad quaint and truly the kind of British fare you\u2019d expect for a made-for-TV movie, Danny, the Champion of the World <\/em>follows Irons and his son Samuel (in the title role) as they hatch a scheme (involving the aforementioned pheasants) to stay in the land they own and foil the plans of the resident wealthy landowner who hopes to oust them for his own benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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10. The BFG<\/em> (2016)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a shame that the bottom rung of this list is populated by great names like Zemeckis, Tarantino, Burton, Guillermo del Toro (a writer on the recent Witches<\/em>), and Steven Spielberg. Yet there\u2019s no denying that the E.T. <\/em>filmmaker was always going to be an odd match with Dahl. The director\u2019s brand of mainstream schmaltz hasn\u2019t precluded him from making transcendent family friendly fare, but somehow the gee-whiz CGI spectacle of The BFG <\/em>muddles more than elevates this take on Dahl\u2019s classic, which had already gotten a lovely animated treatment a quarter of a century prior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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9. The BFG<\/em> (1989)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m trying not to let nostalgia get the best of me here. I have fond memories of this animated take on the \u201cBig Friendly Giant,\u201d but looking back on it, the animation leaves a little to be desired. It\u2019s not quite as slick as the great Disney fare of its time\u2014and it feels all the more shoddy compared to Spielberg\u2019s attempt\u2014but there\u2019s something to be said about its roughened edges, which are much more endearing than you\u2019d first care to admit. Sometimes, after all, an absurd-sounding tale about a friendship between a young girl and a giant who catches dreams (and who ends up having a face-to-face with Queen Elizabeth herself!) is better suited for the malleable world of 2D animation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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8. 36 Hours <\/em>(1964) <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Listen, you had me at James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, and Rod Taylor. The success of this suspenseful George Seaton take on Dahl’s “Beware of the Dog” short story arguably depends on quite a high level of suspension of disbelief (the entire plot hinges on an intelligent officer being duped into thinking years have passed since he was unwittingly captured and is now encouraged to believe it\u2019s okay to divulge key military secrets to his secretly-German-passing-as-British abductors). But it\u2019s ingenious if you just let yourself be taken on its wild ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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7. Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot<\/em> (2015)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Proving not all Dahl\u2019s stories revolve around horribly cruel adults, this sweet story centers on an elderly gentleman who concocts a plan to woo his downstairs neighbor with the help of a spectrum of differently-sized tortoises. That may well sound too twee, but trust the man behind British classics like Love, Actually <\/em>and Four Weddings and a Funeral <\/em>to bring just the right amount of sentimentality to this unlikely romcom to make it sing. Both on the page and in Richard Curtis\u2019s amiable adaptation\u2014which stars none other than Dame Judi Dench!\u2014the tale of Mr. Hoppy and Mrs. Silver hums along with a sweetness that\u2019s never too treacly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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6. Revolting Rhymes <\/em>(2016)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film back in 2017, this BBC production turned five of the six poems from the 1982 book into a breezy comedic take on some of your favorite fairy tales. Only don’t expect Little Red Riding Hood or Snow White to follow the scripts that have long been associated with them. Just as in Dahl\u2019s playful poems (\u201cThe small girl smiles\/Her eyelid flickers\/She whips a pistol from her knickers\/She aims it at the creature’s head and BANG! BANG! BANG! she shoots him … dead.\u201d), the characters in Jakob Schuh and Jan Lachauer\u2019s animated film turn the tables on those old-fashioned tales, remaking and refashioning them for a modern audience (spoiler alert: Red does get herself a wolfskin but the actual ending is decidedly less bloody, and much more touching, than Dahl\u2019s original poem).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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5. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory<\/em> (1971)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019d be forgiven for thinking this family classic should rank higher\u2014or possibly lower. Your mileage will vary depending on whether you fall into the \u201cit\u2019s an undisputed classic\u201d camp or into the \u201cit\u2019s an aberration Dahl himself rebuked\u201d one instead. Both are true! The best aspects of this musical adaptation of Dahl\u2019s 1964 novel are the very things the author disavowed: its leading man (Gene Wilder) and its hummable songs (especially \u201cPure Imagination\u201d). Those two decisions softened the edge of Dahl\u2019s plot about the eccentric candymaker and, in the process, made the chocolate factory tour more saccharine than it reads on the page; Wilder is definitely off-kilter, but there\u2019s a warmth to him that makes him endearing rather than terrifying. With his signature purple suit and hat, Wilder\u2019s Wonka has become an icon (and a meme<\/a>!) in his own right, eclipsing, perhaps, Dahl\u2019s initial concept for the reclusive character. Nevertheless, there\u2019s no denying that the film\u2019s endurance has led many a film fan to get lost not just in Mel Stuart\u2019s kitschy Wonka factory, but in Dahl\u2019s book and sequel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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4. James and the Giant Peach<\/em> (1996)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Before the peach became an emblem for thirst and class warfare on screen (see: Call Me By Your Name <\/em>and Parasite, <\/em>respectively), it was most iconically associated\u2014in my head, at least\u2014with this classic Roald Dahl tale. And while I admit I\u2019ll never again be able to read this title without a certain emoji, and its many associations, coming to mind right away, that shouldn\u2019t take away from the whimsical animated film that first made me fall in love with James in the first place. With a whimsy that feels of a piece with Dahl\u2019s greatest writing, Henry Selick (he of Nightmare Before Christmas<\/em> fame) made the many outrageous characters that populate this fable about a boy eager to rid himself of the horrid aunts who care for him (including a talking spider voiced by Susan Sarandon and a a centipede voiced by Richard Dreyfuss) feel both ridiculous and heartwarming in equal measure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3. Matilda<\/em> (1996)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

If you were a bookworm growing up (and perhaps even if you remain one), there was something rather radical about Matilda, book and character alike. Here, after all, the penchant for stories and the hunger for reading were cast as central to a young girl\u2019s budding magical powers. Matilda\u2019s precocity may be cause for disdain by her parents, but to Dahl, it was key to her strength. Plus, she knew how to play a mean prank. With Mara Wilson in the title role, director Danny DeVito (yes, really) found the perfect girl to capture the giddiness of Dahl\u2019s heroine without losing any of her bite. Moreover, DeVito\u2019s fascination with black comedy (see Throw Momma from the Train <\/em>and The War of the Roses<\/em>) meant he didn\u2019t shy away from the darker edges of this otherwise family-friendly affair. Pam Ferris\u2019s cruel headmistress Agatha Trunchbull remained just the right mixture of appalling and absurd, anchoring, along with DeVito\u2019s Harry Wormwood and Rhea Perlman’s Zinnia Wormwood that most insidious and dangerous of adults Dahl could envision: joyless anti-intellectual grown-ups with children in their care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2. Fantastic Mr. Fox<\/em> (2009)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Given Dahl\u2019s wild imagination, it\u2019s no surprise his work pairs so well with animation. Still, if you\u2019d told me Wes Anderson, he of Rushmore <\/em>and The Royal Tenenbaums <\/em>fame, would helm one of my favorite\u2014and, arguably, one of the best\u2014Dahl adaptations around, I wouldn\u2019t have believed you. Yet Anderson\u2019s exacting visual formalism (he\u2019s never met a symmetrically framed shot he dislikes) and his self-serious twee sentimentality made for a remarkably good fit for this stop-motion take on Fantastic Mr. Fox, <\/em>which boasts the voice work of the likes of George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Anderson staples like Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson. Offering a decidedly playful and sly take on Dahl\u2019s fable that nevertheless spoke to the filmmaker\u2019s signature themes (a father-son relationship is here central in a way it is not in the book, for instance), Anderson managed to make this story about a wily fox intent on outwitting three farmers intent on capturing him into a film about the anxieties of family life and the weighted expectations of growing up.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1. The Witches <\/em>(1990)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Is it unfair to reduce the success of The Witches <\/em>to Anjelica Huston\u2019s divine performance as the Grand High Witch? Perhaps, but the Academy Award winner\u2019s take on Dahl\u2019s masterful creation is arguably what both grounds and elevates this adaptation. Yes, the film does give us a more traditional happy ending than Dahl envisioned for his boy-turned-mouse protagonist, but in Nicolas Roeg\u2019s hands, this 1990 adaptation really revels in the dark fantasy elements that have made The Witches <\/em>such a lightning rod of a book. The image of Huston\u2019s monstrous true face, with her elongated nose and sore-filled scalp, is one of the rare instances in which a live action riff on Dahl has felt as much an homage to his deliciously dastardly prose as to Quentin Blake\u2019s iconic illustrations. Add in Jim Henson\u2019s puppet work, which feels now like a welcome lo-fi take on special effects, and you\u2019ve got a truly terrifying family film that\u2019s sure to scar you in all the right ways. If you haven\u2019t caught it, let me just quote Huston\u2019s witch: \u201cYou\u2019re in for a treat!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roald Dahl holds a special place in my childhood. I still have vivid memories of reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda in school (we even read his rather unsavory memoir Boy; his accounts of boarding school bullying haunt me to this day!) and of watching the delightful early ’90s film adaptations of some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":146685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5647],"tags":[356,161],"class_list":["post-146654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reading-list","tag-childhood","tag-movies"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Definitive Ranking of Roald Dahl Film Adaptations - 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