Starring: Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron, Chloe Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard, and Bette Midler
Distributor: Universal Pictures International
Runtime: 87 mins. Reviewed in Dec 2019
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This Canadian-US film is based on the cartoons of the same name by Charles Addams that were published originally by him in 1938 in “The New Yorker” magazine.
Over time, images of “The Addams Family” have appeared in many different formats. They have influenced two movies of the same name; sundry cartoons, comic strips, and computer games; multiple books; and even a Broadway musical in 2010. All relay the adventures of members of a weird family, who have inspired public affection, and have created pop-horror cultural entertainment as an eccentric group of people, who regularly behave in a dark and creepy way.
In this computer animated version, Gomez Addams (Oscar Isaac) and his gloomy wife, Morticia (Charlize Theron), are chased away from their own wedding ceremony in Europe and become refugees wanting to settle in America. In the US, they find an abandoned and haunted mental asylum situated in New Jersey on a hill surrounded by a perpetual fog of swamp gas. Immediately, they are attracted to it. They decide to call it “home”, and Family moves in.
Their two children – Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard) and Wednesday (Chloe Grace Moretz) – belong to the kind of family that likes to give its house a fresh coat of blood and spider webs to make it more pleasant-looking and comfortable. The Family has a severed hand that is always there to help, and Lurch, an ex-mental patient, as its butler. The Family draws its extended members together to celebrate Pugsley’s upcoming Mazurka, which is a rite of passage which every Addams Family member undertakes. However, plans to do that don’t go down all that well with the locals.
It is not long before The Addams Family raises the ire of greedy, reality TV host, Margaux Needler (Allison Janney), who feels she can’t sell an image of a village with any real estate potential, unless members of the Addams Family move on. She knows they won’t change, and she declares war.
Although it all comes right in the end, The Addams Family tries to win the battle to stay as it is. Wednesday practices her killer tendencies, while Mugsey plays destructively with his bombs and hand-grenades, and the Grandma of the family (Bette Midler) exercises her mean disposition at every opportunity. The film descends into Halloween happenings wherever it can, and through it all The Addams Family have a fun time.
The film communicates three main pro-social messages: families can be very different and that should be appreciated; we are who we really are; and our differences should be respected. The messages are clear, but fade in relevance by being caught in the hyper-activity of it all. The three main themes lose clarity and salience in everyone’s attempt to behave anti-socially to each other, the main game being to annihilate whoever is regarded as the enemy as quickly as possible.
The overarching thrust of the movie is not to redirect the story of The Addams Family and take viewers forward from what the Family was like in the past, but rather to reestablish The Addams Family in computer animated form, doing the same things as before. This is a Family of people, who behave very oddly, but they do like each other and they bond together strongly.
The animation in the movie is well paced, but curiously flat-balled in its imagery. Fantasy is clearly differentiated from reality, but the fantasy aims itself as if violence and meanness counts the most. The PG rating tells the viewer that the violence never gets completely out of hand, but the enjoyment the film engenders is gothic in character, and never uplifting. This is an animated movie where one finds little meaning. The film might satisfy, but it will not enthuse, even past fans of The Addams Family.
Peter W. Sheehan is Associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting
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