Matilda is a 1996 American fantasy comedy based on Roald Dahl’s 1988 novel, directed by Danny DeVito from a screenplay by Nicholas Kazan and Robin Swicord. Mara Wilson plays Matilda Wormwood, a child prodigy who develops psychokinetic abilities and uses them against her abusive family and the tyrannical principal of her school. The film runs 98 minutes and was released in the United States on August 2, 1996, by Sony Pictures Releasing under the TriStar Pictures label.
Trailer, via FT Depot.
Harry and Zinnia Wormwood
The Wormwoods are the film’s first problem, and they are a real one. Harry, played by DeVito, and Zinnia, played by Rhea Perlman, neglect and mistreat their daughter. They refuse to enroll her in school. Harry destroys one of her library books and forces her to watch television instead, and the set explodes.
DeVito and Perlman play the pair as broad, nasty cartoons. That works for the comedy and costs the film something in menace. The cruelty lands, but it never draws blood.
The Library Books
Matilda is six years old, smart and independent, and she finds solace in books at the public library. That is the film’s best idea and its quietest one. A neglected child builds herself out of borrowed stories, and the movie trusts the image without underlining it.
Wilson carries those scenes without pushing. She is the reason the film holds together when the adults are shouting.
Crunchem Hall and Agatha Trunchbull
Harry sells a car to Agatha Trunchbull, the principal of Crunchem Hall Elementary School, in exchange for admitting Matilda as a student. Pam Ferris plays Trunchbull as a genuine threat. On Matilda’s first day, Lavender and Hortensia warn her about the headmistress’s disciplinary methods: throwing students out of the window, locking them in an iron maiden known as the Chokey.
Then there is the chocolate cake. Trunchbull calls the school to the assembly hall and forces student Bruce Bogtrotter to eat an enormous cake in one sitting, provided by the school cook Cookie, as punishment for stealing a slice. Matilda and the school lead Bruce to success. Trunchbull gives them five hours of detention.
Miss Jennifer Honey
Embeth Davidtz plays Miss Honey, the teacher who notices the ease with which Matilda answers middle school multiplication questions. She requests that Matilda be moved to a higher class. Trunchbull refuses, and the Wormwoods are not interested either.
Miss Honey is the film’s moral center, and Davidtz plays her straight. She rescues Matilda from the Chokey after Trunchbull locks her in as punishment for the faulty car Harry sold. The rescue matters more than the explosion that follows it.
The Television and the Newt
The film’s fantasy elements are its weakest. The television explodes. Lavender puts a newt in Trunchbull’s water pitcher. These are the moments the movie reaches for, and they are the moments it strains.
The psychokinesis is the premise, not the point. Matilda’s gift arrives late and resolves the plot quickly, which flattens the ending. The film is better when it is about a girl reading.
The FBI Agents
Paul Reubens and Tracey Walter play two FBI agents who pose as speedboat salesmen while surveilling Harry over his illegal dealings, including purchasing stolen car parts. Zinnia flirts with them. The subplot is thin, and it exists mostly to give the adults something to do.
It also produces the film’s clearest statement about the Wormwoods: they refuse to believe their own daughter’s warning. That is the whole family in one scene.
What Works and What Doesn’t
Here is the ranking, in order of what Matilda gets right:
- Mara Wilson as Matilda, the performance the film is built on.
- Pam Ferris as Trunchbull, a villain who is actually frightening.
- The library scenes, which understand the character better than the effects do.
- Embeth Davidtz as Miss Honey, steady and unshowy.
- The chocolate cake sequence, which is genuinely funny.
- The psychokinesis, which arrives too late to earn its ending.
- The FBI subplot, which never connects to anything.
Matilda grossed $47 million on a $36 million budget. It received positive reviews, with praise directed toward its faithfulness to the novel and DeVito’s direction, and it found a much larger audience afterward on home video. That history makes sense. This is a film that plays better at home, where the small, quiet scenes can carry the weight the big ones cannot.
The film’s best asset is its restraint, and its worst habit is abandoning that restraint whenever it remembers it is a fantasy. The tagline promises that somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world. The movie is most convincing when it says that power is a library card.
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