Wednesday, review: Tim Burton's incredible experiment
Wednesday, review
How many fans, over the years, have wanted at least once to see a version of the Addams Family created by director Tim Burton? Many, many times. For this reason, when the news of a TV series directed by him arrives, the public completely loses its mind. Wednesday (Wednesday) is the absolute novelty that will arrive on Netflix starting from… Guess what? Wednesday, November 23.
Buy Fire TV Stick 4k with Alexa remote to watch Netflix directly on your TV. Joined by composer Danny Elfman , the director of the grotesque is directly inspired by the comics of Charles Addams , creating, one might say, a monograph on Wednesday's character. It is the young Jenna Ortega ( You ) who plays her. It has long been known who plays the role of Morticia and Gomez Addams: Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán .
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Wednesday is a careful monograph
After an unfortunate prank on some classmates, Wednesday Addams is expelled from school for the umpteenth time. Her mother Morticia decides to enroll her in the Nevermore Academy, an institution for outcasts and creatures with particular powers marginalized by society. It is also the academy where her parents met and fell in love with her. To welcome her there is the Principal Weems (Gwendoline Christie) and the cheerful and sunny Enid Sinclair, her future roommate. Wednesday's hellish stay soon turns out to be exceptional when strange presences and unpleasant events hit the school and the city.if (jQuery("#crm_srl-th_culturapop_d_mh3_1").is( ":visible")) { //console.log("[ACTIVATION TEST] adding zone: tag crm_srl-th_culturapop_d_mh3_1 slot id: th_culturapop_d_mh3"); } The students of Nevermore Academy As mentioned, and as the title suggests, the new Burtonian series is focused almost exclusively on Wednesday. This represents the first absolute novelty with respect to the previous works and, above all, to the pre-existing filmography. After the comic, the disturbing family sees its success grow with the 1964 ABC series, then with the 1991 first feature film directed by Berry Sonnenfeld. The historic cast of the TV show does not lose its iconicity, however the interpretations of Anjelica Huston and Raul Julia leave their mark. Also memorable is the interpretation of Christofer Lloyd in the role of Uncle Fester and that of Christina Ricci in the role of the young niece. The actress, curiously, is present in the new cast, obviously playing a new character. The scenes in which she and Jenna Ortega interact are curious, and extremely nostalgic, as if the old Wednesday officially gave way to the new one.
The characterization of Wednesday
The filmography of the Addams is much larger than that, but what has been mentioned is enough to note a great constant that unites all the works dedicated to them: the choral aspect. Here Burton puts a stop to the numerous events that see the whole family as protagonists, and decides to focus on just one character, returning him to the public in a way that, on the one hand, remains faithful to the original comic and to the imagery transmitted over the years.if (jQuery("#crm_srl-th_culturapop_d_mh4_1").is(":visible")) { CRM_ADS.addZone({tag:"crm_srl-th_culturapop_d_mh4_1",name:"th_culturapop_d_mh4",matchMedia:"(min -width: 1300px)"}); //console.log("[ACTIVATION TEST] adding zone: tag crm_srl-th_culturapop_d_mh4_1 slot id: th_culturapop_d_mh4"); } With her black hair gathered in two long braids and her pale face, dressed in dark clothes, Wednesday seems like a timeless figure, crystallized in her own micro-universe while the surrounding world is constantly changing. As the new companion Enid would say, she seems struck by a black and white filter, in the midst of the thousand colors that fill the rooms of the Nevermore Academy. At the same time, the director provides new aspects of the protagonist, highlighting her complex personality even more, especially in a context in which she is forced to establish various interpersonal relationships.
The Addams Family The choosing to focus only on her inevitably overshadows figures like Morticia and Gomez, who rarely appear in only a few key episodes. In the light of what has been said above, it would perhaps have been difficult to repeat the experiment of the first films and create a new Addams Family that was as iconic as the previous ones, but Burton certainly manages to give life to a new Wednesday destined to become exemplary, thanks also to the 'identification of Ortega, perfectly fitting in her shoes.
A teen drama with dark tones
With an engaging rhythm, Wednesday could be considered a teen drama with a strong taste for the macabre and for the horror. The plot is that of a real thriller with supernatural elements, full of mystery and investigation. It is the protagonist herself who investigates the curious events that are affecting the Nevermore Academy. The screenplay reveals a real study by the director of Addams' graphic work, of which he retains the sagacity, sarcasm and macabre humor of the protagonist.Enid and Mecoledì During the years, the most macabre family in the world is made contemporary by the different creators, as if to underline its immortality. Tim Burton also implements this process, placing the characters in a world now dominated by technology and, above all, by the internet and social networks. Enid is the perfect personification of the "teen" who lives in 2022 and who interfaces with the world through platforms, likes, interactions on Instagram. Wednesday does not give in - or does not want to - to the trends of the new decade (and in some cases not even to the habits of the twentieth century). What does he do in his spare time? She plays the cello and types, as well as torturing her brother Pugsley. She even fights against herself in order not to give in to the urgent request for a computer to make a video call, she is hardly at ease drinking a cappuccino in a cafeteria. The contrast that emerges contributes to that unusual humor that permeates the series.
Burton talks about Burton
When Tim Burton presents the series at Lucca Comics and Games 2022, he immediately cares to clarify the strong autobiographical component - or almost - contained within it. Nevermore Academy, a place for the marginalized, is a place where the latter can feel at ease, at home: a safe abode to be who you are without fearing the judgment of others. Those who know Burton's life and career well will remember his work experience with Disney and his suffering in being in an environment that did not feel like him, in which he perceived himself as "the different". Sensation that the director brings with him and transfers to the screen and to almost all of his characters: Edward in Edward Scissorhands, Lydia in Beetlejuice, Victor in Corpse Bride and many others.The particularity of Wednesday, however, is to even appear as the outcast of outcasts: the girl is not immediately able to find her own dimension to share with others and immediately becomes the strangest of the strange. But in the end, diversity is not a defect, and uniqueness makes us who we are. Thus the new Netflix series takes on an important message, and knowing that it comes directly from the director's heart gives it an edge.
Never forget the origins
Wednesday is a artistically valid product. Even with some slight hesitation in the use of CGI, it enjoys excellent stylistic choices, which often play on the contrast between the protagonist and her surroundings. For this purpose, the diversified use of lights and colors is fundamental, immediately noticeable in the curious dualism in the room of Enid and the young Addams, half in color and half in black and white.Wednesday Throughout the episodes, there are numerous references to those historical elements that characterize the Addams Family, such as the famous snap of the fingers inserted into the story in a brilliant way; or the opening theme which, with its melody, invariably recalls the original one, while acquiring those typical features of Danny Elfman, now an essential figure in the Burtonian universe. It would be impossible not to associate the opening with the director, with those spiral shapes or that succession of objects that are very reminiscent of The Chocolate Factory, Edward Scissorhands or Corpse Bride.
If on the one hand Tim Burton wants faithfully paying homage to his origins, on the other hand he cannot fail to remain tied to the world he has created by himself since his first projects and which he manages to carry on, year after year. That gloom that he transmits in his works returns here with particular shots, such as that of the black silhouette of the protagonist in the center of the frame. In Wednesday the roots of the Addams Family and those of the director blend perfectly, coexisting in harmony. On the other hand, who better than him could ever get along with their disturbing, macabre and grotesque character?
