Matilda (1996)

This is a pretty good film, I'd suggest it to anyone curious, I definitely prefer this over its musical counterpart.

After a couple of rewatches I have a fan theory that the telekinetic side of Matilda's powers appear much earlier than explicitly stated. About 20 minutes into the film, Matilda blows up the TV because her dad forces her to watch it after destroying a library book. This would seem to the average viewer probably the first explicit use of her powers. To some, I may be stating the obvious, but I feel the scene before where Mr. Wormwood creates a whirlwind of confusion and chaos is the first use of her powers.

Eventually Mr. Wormwood knocks into a table, sending food flying, conveniently, the food lands at the table where his children sit. Matilda gets a fairly appetising meal while her brother gets his food on his face.

This film is about standing up to awful authority figures, be it horrible parents, terrible aunts and evil school principals, early on in the film, Matilda learns that even kids could punish their parents, if it was reasonable of course. And this is later reflected through Miss Honey who stands up to her aunt, the Trunchbull - who killed her father, Magnus - then the entire school erupts into throwing food at Trunchbull in the most climatic and satisfying 3rd act breakdown I've seen in cinema so far.

It's not easy to stand up against someone who has a great, but toxic, influence over your life. But I should say it is possible, Miss Honey exemplifies this. As a side note, her actor - Embeth Davidtz - does an excellent job portraying her, for example, in the scene where Matilda uses her powers to impersonate Magnus and Trunchbull faints, even in the background you can see Embeth portraying Miss Honey's conflicting emotions, mainly a mix of "I am now free from this cruel person" and "Oh no, my aunt has now fainted on the floor." She's just excellent. I might consider working with her on one of my own films.

This film is really good, for children and adults, and there's a lot worth talking about, perhaps more than I'm willing to say in a simple review.