[[ But looking at everything in light of the love-at-first-sight Dickens moment, I'm more inclined to view Matilda as a love story, in which they triumph over terrible odds in order to be together and to live happily ever after. The montage at the end - they play with hula hoops, they sew, they roll around on the lawn, they read together - to me reinforces the image of them as peers. ]]
Interesting. Reading that montage litany I thought, "That sounds like peers like whoa, and that bothers me" -- because Miss Honey is an adult acting like a child, and I like adult adults, even though thinking back to the book she is far more child than adult. And I rather suspect that the ideal in Dahl's children's books is eternal childness (the only positive real adult I can think of is the grandmother in The Witches). But it has been years since I read any of the Dahl books.
I love Matilda's Ravenclawness (if we must use HP metaphors) and the idea that they make her into more of a Gryffindor in the film adds to my reasons not to see the film -- because I am way more comfortable with her bookishness than with her tricksiness.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-08 09:15 pm (UTC)Interesting. Reading that montage litany I thought, "That sounds like peers like whoa, and that bothers me" -- because Miss Honey is an adult acting like a child, and I like adult adults, even though thinking back to the book she is far more child than adult. And I rather suspect that the ideal in Dahl's children's books is eternal childness (the only positive real adult I can think of is the grandmother in The Witches). But it has been years since I read any of the Dahl books.
I love Matilda's Ravenclawness (if we must use HP metaphors) and the idea that they make her into more of a Gryffindor in the film adds to my reasons not to see the film -- because I am way more comfortable with her bookishness than with her tricksiness.