FILMREVIEW: Alice in Wonderland

The latest release of maverick director Tim Burton is the long-awaited production of Alice in Wonderland, based on the book by Lewis Carroll, now running in Bucharest movie theaters. For all the elements that seemed to guarantee that this would become a not-to-miss fantasy flick – the director, the cast and the author that the film uses as props – it seems that Burton has achieved the impossible: he has managed to shoot himself in the foot with this one.

The partnership between Johnny Depp, Tim Burton and his wife, actress Helena Bonham Carter, is not new and has borne good fruit in the past: it saw the release of gothic masterpieces such as the animation story Corpse Bride and the musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. But this time Depp should have said “Nay”. He missed a good opportunity not to star in what is a lackluster and unimaginative story where even the characters (and actors who play them) seem at a loss what to do. Granted, the film uses Carroll’s stories only as a starting point, granted it is a children’s story, granted it is a Walt Disney production, but did he really have to make it so plain?

Let me explain myself. The film catches up with Alice (wonderfully played by Mia Wasikowska) several years after Carroll recounts Alice’s adventures in Wonderland. She is now 19 and well on track to marrying a boorish and plain aristocrat with a bad intestinal tract. As Alice, who has a rich imagination and is a bit of a rebel for her time, is faced with making some tough decisions, she plunges back through the rabbit hole and is reunited with long lost friends and acquaintances who she believed to have been just figments of her childish imagination: the Mad Hatter, the Rabbit, the Caterpillar and the infamous Red Queen. We are privy to her fall through the rabbit hole, wavering size problems and her identity issues and the flick starts to feel like a visual adventure. It is at the moment when Alice discovers that the purpose of her presence there is to end the dominion of the Red Queen when the film starts to go downhill. From there on, it becomes clear that Burton has been working to a recipe: get some highly-rated actors on board, scatter around some recognizable elements from Carroll’s books, spice it up with beautiful costumes and visuals, throw in also a dramatic battle between good and evil – and there you have it: a success story. But it is not quite that simple.

The eccentric filmmaker acts well on his instinct to assign a more humane and sadder side to the Mad Hatter, but he blows it again with innuendos of an impossible love story between The Hatter and Alice. He also plays with doubles: we find two girls who are Alice’s acquaintances in the real world, two queens – the Red Queen vs. the White Queen – and twin brothers – Tweedledee and Tweedledum – whom Burton fished out of another Carroll story, Through the Looking Glass. The characters fill their entertaining role well enough but to a sterile end, it seems. Their presence in the story is justified merely by comic effects, but in reality the script would have been equally bad without them.

Burton still has some aces up his sleeve: Alice’s fall through the rabbit hole, her attempts to reach the right size to go through the door that brings her into Wonderland, the scene where she stands at the table with the Mad Hatter, all are eye-catchers. The costumes are incredible and seeing the Cheshire Cat may be worth the money. In fact, the only worthwhile moments are those that follow the actual book. But if you have enjoyed Carroll’s stories, you may be better off not going. And anyway, what kind of story about Alice doesn’t have one of the most famous lines: “I am just a poor man, Your Majesty, and I haven’t even had my tea”?

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Otilia Haraga

Director: Tim Burton

Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp

On at: Cinema City Cotroceni, Cinema City Cotroceni, Sala VIP, Cityplex, Hollywood Multiplex, Samsung Imax Cotroceni, Starplex