Sacrees sorcieres (Roald Dahl’s The Witches)

While our favorite annual holiday, Halloween, is only a few days away and the British genre film festival Frighfest allows all film enthusiasts to discover horrific independent productions, the United States also seems to want to offer us a successful film for this difficult period in which we would all like to have the gifts of wizards like Harry Potter to return to our lives before the pandemic. Published in 1983 as one of the bestsellers of the British writer Roald Dahl, The Witches has established itself through its many reissues as a classic of children's literature and features witches with striking features such as having claws instead of nails, are bald and have a bizarre behavior.

In the novel the story is told by a seven-year-old English boy, who goes to live with his Norwegian grandmother after his parents are killed in a tragic car accident. By remaining faithful to the book, the writers Robert Zemeckis, Kenya Barris, Guillermo del Toro have dusted off this classic of literature and transposed the story that takes place in England and Norway to the United States in Alabama. Several important changes are made from the point of view of the main characters: a young African-American child and his grandmother played here by the actress Octavia Spenser but also by giving a greater part to the Great Witch (Anne Hathaway) and by putting forward these three children who have become mice in spite of themselves in a definitive way. The association with the screenplay by Robert Zemeckis and Guillermo Del Toro works perfectly and gives this film a real aura without sinking into a deep infantilism that would have harmed the emotional strength of this film.

Produced by Robert Zemeckis, Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón and others, it would be interesting to see the imprint of these three great directors on this film and how they were able to find common ground to offer a quality family fantasy comedy with multiple twists and turns. It would also be interesting to see how the end of the film respects the end of the book without imposing a real happy ending that is too American and that would have made this film lose its special aura.

Already adapted to the cinema in 1990 by director Nicolas Roeg in The Witches, Sacred Witches (Roald Dahl's The Witches) finds all the strength of the fantastic actors of the 80s and 90s in which the spectators could really be surprised and whose interpretation, direction and special effects were just as important to give life to intrigues full of twists and turns. A gifted storyteller, Robert Zemeckis is the perfect director to offer us a touching fantasy tale with a few scary scenes marked by Anne Hathaway's excellent interpretation of a witch who is in some ways reminiscent of the character of Pennywise in Andrés Muschietti's film adaptation of Stephen King's Ca (including the witch's real face and her scary hands). After the trilogy Back to the Future, Death Becomes Her (1992), The Legend of Beowulf (2007), Robert Zemeckis once again tackles a theme that is dear to him, fantasy. It is easy to understand his attraction for Roald Dahl's book, which also addresses themes that are close to his heart, such as the family, our place in society, but also the fact of believing in the impossible.

Roald Dahl's The Witches is not perfect starting with this long introduction in which we discover a class and the voice of the storyteller (Chris Rock in the original version) who is none other than the voice of the main character, this young child taken in by his grandmother following the death of his parents and his difficult integration with his sick grandmother. Yet once this child and his grandmother arrive in this sumptuous seaside resort and the Great Witch appears, the film really begins and never ceases to surprise us and be truly captivating. Between successful special effects, scenes of pure comedy and other scenes close to the spirit of Halloween, we can only get carried away by this successful film that will please the whole family.

We would have liked so much for this film to be released at the same time in every country in the world but the pandemic decided differently. Now available in the United States on HBM Max, we'll have to be patient and wait until November 18 (if the date doesn't change) to discover it in France in all the right cinemas. This film would have been perfect in France to celebrate Halloween with the family and forget the permanent sadness caused by this global pandemic.

Roald Dahl's The Witches
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Produced by Robert Zemeckis, Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, Jack Rapke, Luke Kelly
Screenplay by Robert Zemeckis, Kenya Barris, Guillermo del Toro
Based on The Witches by Roald Dahl
Starring Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, Stanley Tucci
Narrated by Chris Rock
Music by Alan Silvestri
Cinematography: Don Burgess
Edited by Jeremiah O'Driscoll, Ryan Chan
Production company: Warner Max, ImageMovers, Necropia Entertainment, Esperanto Filmoj
Distributed by: HBO Max (United States), Warner Bros. Pictures (International)
Release date: October 22, 2020 (United States), November 18 2020 (France)
Running time: 105 minutes

Seen October 22, 2020

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