Matilda is a 1996 American fantasy film directed by Danny DeVito, based on the novel of the same name by Roald Dahl. The film was released by TriStar Pictures on August 2, 1996 and stars Mara Wilson, Danny DeVito, Rhea Perlman, Embeth Davidtz, and Pam Ferris.
Matilda Wormwood is an extremely intelligent girl with a bright personality. However, her parents, Harry and Zinnia, are irresponsible parents who would rather focus on their work and their leisure time than Matilda. Harry "sells used cars, for unfair parents." While Zinnia goes out to play bingo, and Matilda's older brother, Michael goes to school. Leaving Matilda alone in the house
At the age of 4, after her father refuses to buy her a book, Matilda starts visiting the library. She absorbs knowledge like a sponge, but her bookishness damages her relationship with her father. After being tormented by her father, she sets two revenges on him: she bleaches his hair from black to blonde by replacing his hair oil with peroxide, and she glues her father’s hat on, on the day when her father demonstrates his motoring abilities to Michael, who is just as bad as Matilda’s parents. The pranks make Matilda’s father so angry that he tears up Matilda’s library book. But when he forces her to watch TV with the rest of the family, she unintentionally makes the TV explode, the first sign she has telekinetic abilities, which tells Matilda that she can do anything if she tries hard enough. The next day, Matilda’s father enrolls her at Crunchem Hall Elementary School, where the children are terrorized by the school’s principal, a former athlete named Miss Agatha Trunchbull. After being told stories about Miss Trunchbull by Lavender and Hortensia, Matilda realizes that she is in a bad situation. This is reinforced as Miss Trunchbull hammer-throws one of the students, Amanda Thripp, though she lands safely in a flower bed.
Luckily, Matilda’s new teacher, Miss Jennifer Honey is a kind woman, and Matilda's classmates like her. Matilda tells her class she got her knowledge by reading. After Matilda solves a difficult math question, Miss Honey tells Miss Trunchbull about Matilda’s unusually bright intelligence, but Miss Trunchbull does not pay attention. Miss Honey tries to tell Matilda’s parents, but clearly they do not care about Matilda’s education or anything else about her, effectively making Miss Honey the only person who truly understands Matilda. Meanwhile, Matilda notices two FBI agents watching the family to catch her father using stolen or inferior parts in his used-car shop. Matilda tells her parents about the FBI agents but they do not take her seriously, the agents having already fooled them into thinking they are speedboat salesmen.
One day at school, Matilda is locked up in "the chokey" (a small closet used as a dungeon) by Miss Trunchbull as a way of revenge against her father, who sold her a faulty car, but is freed by Miss Honey. After Miss Trunchbull torments several of the students in Matilda's class, Lavender plays a prank on her by putting a newt in the water Miss Trunchbull is about to drink. The newt leaps onto Miss Trunchbull, to the class's amusement and her consternation. Matilda later confesses to Miss Honey that she actually made the newt jump at Miss Trunchbull by making the glass tip with her telekinetic powers. Matilda tries to demonstrate her newfound abilities to Miss Honey, but she fails to do so.
Miss Honey invites Matilda for a cup of tea in her cottage, but as they get to the cottage, Miss Honey reveals her dark secret: when Miss Honey was only two years old, her mother died and a cruel aunt, Miss Trunchbull herself, came to take care of her. When Miss Honey was five, her wealthy physician father died (the theory is he commited suicide).
Miss Honey shows Matilda her old luxurious house, which Miss Trunchbull took over after Miss Honey's father's death. Miss Honey also reveals that her father used to share his chocolates with Miss Honey, before his death, and also she used to have a doll, Liccy. Miss Trunchbull is out, so they enter to retrieve the doll, but Miss Trunchbull returns after her car breaks down again. The scene becomes a cat-and-mouse chase, with Matilda and Miss Honey finally escaping the house through the basement. Exhausted and out of breath, Miss Honey asks Matilda to promise her to never go back to the house again.
Matilda goes back to her house in the middle of a row between her parents, caused by her father throwing the FBI agents, who were again posing as speedboat salesmen and being entertained by Zinnia, out of the house. Harry attempts to take his anger out on Matilda, but her telekinesis manifest again and she locks him out of her room. Matilda soon learns to master her incredibly strong telekinetic abilities, her memories of being constantly tormented by her family and Miss Trunchbull being her main drive. The FBI agents return and search the garage without a warrant while Matilda is alone, but Matilda outwits them with her powers by telekinetically releasing the brakes of their car and pinching their videotape of evidence, which she throws in the bin.
That night, she sneaks away to Trunchbull's house and telekinetically retrieves Liccy and two chocolates. She then plays sinister pranks on Trunchbull, including accelerating the clock hour by hour, flickering the lights, sending the portait of her into the fire, and replacing it with that of Miss Honey's father, Magnus. Matilda leaves, but her red hair ribbon blows away in the stormy wind. Miss Trunchbull attempts to flee in her car but stops when Matilda's ribbon gets caught in the window, and realises Matilda's presence.
The next day at school, Matilda gives Miss Honey her doll and a chocolate and demonstrates her abilities before Miss Trunchbull and the class arrive. Miss Trunchbull lines the class up, claiming that someone in the room broke into her house, producing the red ribbon. She threatens Matilda with the chokey and Miss Honey attempts to take responsibility. Miss Trunchbull grabs her arm, threatening to break it again, and Miss Honey finally stands up to her, calling her "Aunt Trunchbull" to the class' shock. Matilda then begins to spook Miss Trunchbull again, this time by writing a threatening message on the chalkboard from "Magnus", ordering her to give "Bumblebee" (a.k.a. Miss Honey) her house and money and then to leave or else, at the same time hinting that it was Miss Trunchbull who murdered Magnus and made it look like a suicide in order to get his house and assets. She pelts her with erasers, mentally flies a boy whom Trunchbull throws out the window back safely, and spins her around on the globe. Miss Trunchbull spots Lavender and attempts to rush to her, but Matilda lifts her safely out of the way. The rest of the students, alerted by the noise, peek out of their classes to see Miss Trunchbull being pelted by lunches, which they victoriously join in on. Miss Trunchbull runs out to her car and leaves town for good.
Later on, Miss Honey and Matilda are having tea at the mansion when the Wormwoods arrive, claiming that they are being chased by the FBI agents and are leaving for Guam. Matilda protests and wants to stay with Miss Honey, who tells the Wormwoods that she loves Matilda and is willing to adopt her. For the first time, Harry and Zinnia realize how much they love their daughter, but decide to let her stay with Miss Honey, and part ways with Matilda on better terms.
Matilda's family manages to escape to Guam, while Matilda lives a happy childhood with Miss Honey, who herself becomes the headmistress of Crunchem Hall and boosts its popularity to the point that an upper school is added. Also, Matilda only uses her telekinetic abilities for useful things.
The film is a modernized and Americanized version of Roald Dahl's novel of eight years earlier. Various plot points are shortened or removed, while new details and action sequences are added.
- There are some changes in characters' motivations; for example, in the novel, Matilda's pranks against her father are purely done as acts of revenge. However, in the film, she gets the idea that when a person is bad, that person has to be taught a lesson, and interprets this as justification for punishing her parents. In the novel, Matilda plays three tricks on her parents, such as mixing her mother's hair bleach with her father's hair dye, hiding a parrot in the chimney tricking the family into thinking there is a ghost in the house, and lining her father's hat with extra-strength glue. In the film, she only plays two tricks, the hair dye (With Matilda replacing it with Hydrogen peroxide), and the glue-in-the-hat tricks, with both tricks being done on the same day.
- In the novel, Matilda's father destroys the library book The Red Pony by John Steinbeck out of pure malice and that he thinks American authors are morally bankrupt, while in the film, the book he destroys is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, and his reasons for destroying it are that he thinks the book is trash due to the title (possibly due to the film being set in the US).
- In the novel, Mrs Wormwood is described and illustrated as being tall and podgy, and Mr Wormwood is described and illustrated as being small and wiry. In the film, their body shapes are reversed, but their heights are still the same as in the novel.
- Smaller changes are those of ages, TV programs and the like; Matilda's brother is turned from an ordinary boy into a bullying child, and her mother shows some humanity by giving her daughter away because she is better suited to a life with Miss Honey, while in the novel, both parents drop their daughter without a second thought.
- Matilda's mother is named "Zinnia" in the film, as she has no name in the novel. Also, Amanda Thripp is ten years old in the novel, but is Matilda's age and in Miss Honey's class in the film. In addition to this, there is no Nigel, Rupert, Eric or Wilfred in the film. However there is a scene in which Miss Trunchbull holds a boy upside down by his ankle as she does with Wilfred in the novel. This boy also appears to have long hair as Rupert does in the novel. Miss Trunchbull also drops the boy on the floor like she does with Rupert in the novel.
- In the film, it is revealed that Miss Trunchbull is superstitious, but this is not mentioned in the novel.
- At the end of the film, Miss Honey is made the principal of the school after Miss Trunchbull vanishes; in the novel, however, the job goes to Mr. Trilby, the sympathetic Deputy Head, who has a minor role in the novel and does not appear in the film at all.
- In the film, when Mr. Wormwood sells Miss Trunchbull a car, it shows them talking. In the novel, it does not. Also, in the novel, when Miss Trunchbull says she is glad she was never a child, she says it during Miss Honey's class. In the film, she says it when Mr. Wormwood sells her the car. In the film, the car Harry Wormwood sold to Miss Trunchbull was a barely functional red and black 1970 Buick Electra 225 sedan. In the novel, Miss Trunchbull jokes to Miss Honey that Harry Wormwood sold her a car that was almost new, and previously owned by a woman who drove the car once a year and had 10,000 miles (in actuality, it was doctored by Mr. Wormwood using a drill).
- In the film, Matilda's psychokinesis is treated more as a conventional superpower and less as a miracle. Also, she only uses her telekinetic powers after remembering all the mean things her family and Miss Trunchbull have said to her or about her. In the novel, Matilda rigorously practises her psychokinetic powers, which leaves her mentally drained. In the novel, Matilda loses her psychokinetic abilities after the incident with Miss Trunchbull. In the film, Matilda still has her powers in the end, but almost never uses them. The final confrontation with Miss Trunchbull is turned into a match of physical force versus mental powers. In contrast, characters in the novel have a sense of awe at supernatural forces whereas in the film, they are unaffected by these. In the novel, when Matilda attempts to show Miss Honey her powers, she does it sitting at her desk. Then she knocks over the glass with ease, without telling the glass to tip. In the film, she fails to lift the glass of water, however she manages to lift the pitcher of water later in the film to show Miss Honey her powers. In the film she practices her powers by moving every loose object around the house, such as playing cards and poker chips, however in the novel she steals one of her father's cigars and practices her powers with it alone.
- Miss Honey's story about her childhood remains the same. However, the nickname her father used in the novel is "Jenny", while in the film, it is said he called her "bumblebee". In the film, her father has chocolates which he shared with Miss Honey as a girl, and Miss Honey had a doll which she called "Liccy Doll", likely a reference to author Dahl's wife, Liccy, a co-producer of the film. She has none of these items in the novel. In the film, they visit the Trunchbull's house while she is temporarily gone. In the novel, they never visited Miss Trunchbull's house.
- Hortensia has a boil on her nose and is eating potato chips in the novel. She does not have or do either in the film. She is also revealed to have done bad deeds to Miss Trunchbull in the novel. She never does this in the film, although she mentions that she has been put in the chokey twice. When she meets Matilda and Lavender in the novel, it is at a time when Matilda has settled in at school. In the film, she meets them when Matilda walks around the playground. In the novel, Hortensia repeatedly insults Matilda and Lavender and is a bully, while she is friendly and protective over them in the film.
- Lavender catches the newt all by herself in the novel; she was with Matilda, Bruce and Hortensia in the film when it was caught, and mistook it for a frog. When Miss Trunchbull throws the newt out to the class, it falls on a light, then a boy catches it. In the novel, the newt landed right next to Lavender's desk, where she put it in her pencil case.
- In the novel, when Miss Honey asks the class if they know their multiplication tables, Matilda is the only one to raise her hand. In the film, the whole class knows their multiplication tables, Matilda's special ability is discovered when Miss Honey jokes that they could soon solve 13x379, which Matilda solves immediately.
- There is a large food fight between the school children and the Trunchbull near the end of the film, while there is no food fight in the novel. Miss Trunchbull faints in one of the classes in the novel, and is carried out of the classroom. In the film, she flees after the food fight.
- Miss Trunchbull's violence and cruelty towards children is slightly mitigated in the film. When Miss Trunchbull hurls Amanda Thripp into the air, she lands safely gathering flowers (however narrowly missing a spiked fence) in the film. In the novel, she bounces three times but ultimately trots back to the playground. In the film, Matilda is locked in the chokey while the device is only described in the novel. In the scene where Trunchbull throws the boy out of the window, he was eating two M&M's during a literature class. In the novel, he was eating Liquorice Allsorts during a Bible study class. In another scene, after Bruce Bogtrotter successfully eats an entire chocolate cake in one sitting without throwing up or getting stomach pains, Miss Trunchbull then demands that everyone stay for five extra hours after school and copy from the dictionary as punishment, while in the novel, she tells them furiously to leave the assembly room.
- The sub-plot about Mr. Wormwood's shady deals landing him in trouble with the police is hardly mentioned at all in the novel, but in the film, this plot thread is expanded and built upon; Matilda notices the two FBI agents spying on them and repeatedly tries to tell her family without any of them believing her that they are (reiterating that no-one takes any notice of her despite her trying to help them) cops, with her parents insisting that they are speed boat salesmen. She even comes into direct confrontation with the two agents on one occasion, when they are searching the family garage for stolen car parts. She confronts them for searching without a warrant. When they offer her a chance to co-operate with them against her father, she takes the handbrake off their car, causing it to roll off, and the FBI agents to end their search prematurely. When the Wormwoods are found out to have used car parts, the locations they went to were different in both the novel and the film: it was Spain in the novel and Guam in the film.
- In the novel, Matilda ran to her parents' house to find out they were moving. In the film, the family dropped by Miss Honey's house and told Matilda that they were leaving.
- In the novel, the Wormwoods' car as seen at the very end was a black Mercedes-Benz saloon. In the film, the Wormwoods' cars were a red Chrysler LeBaron convertible and a faded green Ford LTD station wagon, the latter being the getaway vehicle.
- In the novel, Mrs. Wormwood simply asks her husband for permission to allow Matilda to live with Miss Honey, while in the film, Matilda's parents need to sign official legal adoption forms, which were Xeroxed from a book. At the end of the novel, Michael is the only family member to say goodbye to Matilda when the family flees the country, but in the film, Matilda's mother is the one who says goodbye.
- Wins
- YoungStar Awards
- Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Comedy Film — Mara Wilson
- Oulu International Children's Film Festival Starboy Award
- Nominations
Two songs are featured in the film. One of them, "Send Me on My Way" by Rusted Root, is played twice: when the four-year-old Matilda is left alone at her house, making pancakes, and at the end of the film, set to a montage of Matilda and Miss Honey playing at Miss Trunchbull's former house. The other song is Thurston Harris's "Little Bitty Pretty One", played when Matilda first discovers her psychokinetic powers.
The film's score was composed by David Newman.
Matilda received critical acclaim at the time of its release. On Rotten Tomatoes it holds a "fresh" rating of 90%. [1] The film fared moderately at the domestic box office, earning $33 million in contrast to its $36 million budget[2] It fared better during its worldwide release and ended up earning back nearly double its original budget.
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