Wednesday Review: The Addams Family Becomes a Teen Drama, an Excellent Mix Between Tradition and Innovation | Netflix Series
Cast: Jenna Ortega, Catherine Zeta Jones, Christina Ricci
Creator: Tim Burton
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Tim Burton’s Wednesday answers the question no one had been asking: What do you get if you join the Addams Family in Riverdale? The answer to this vexing question is nothing particularly exciting. Netflix TV reimagines Wednesday Addams in a teen key, but the experiment seems to be only half successful. Wednesday – on the platform since November 23, 2022, concentrates its efforts on the events of the Addams family’s eldest daughter, played by the very interesting Jenna Ortega, and places her in a context that does not seem to belong to the imagination of the classic franchise. After yet another exploit against her schoolmates (to defend her little brother Pugsley), the girl is sent by her parents to a special institution: the Nevermore; a particular college that houses those who are often referred to as “outcasts”. Indeed, in her classrooms, there are mermaids, werewolves, vampires and extraordinary beings of all kinds.
“Believe nothing you see and only half of what you hear”. Edgar Allan Poe is the tutelary deity of the new series that arrives streaming on Netflix on November 23, which we will tell you about in Wednesday’s review. Edgar Allan Poe is a kindred spirit to Tim Burton, the creator of this series, who himself is a kindred spirit to the Addams Family. The new series is a matter of deep elective affinities and a story that is fully within its strings. With Wednesday, Tim Burton takes the little girl out of the Addams context known to us and imagines her life away from her family, in a new high school for very special kids. The result is very curious and amusing for everything concerning Wednesday and its growth, less successful for the thriller-horror plot that carries on part of the story. But it is probably the algorithm of the platform that asks for it…
Wednesday Review: The Story Plot
After throwing piranhas in the school swimming pool after boys bullied her brother, Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) was expelled from school. Morticia (Catherine Zeta Jones) and Gomez, her parents, thus decide to take her to a new academy, Nevermore Academy, which is the high school they had attended when they were young. They leave her alone, or almost. With her is a trusted member of the Addams Family, namely Mano… It is a school for special pupils. Only, outside, something is starting to kill the kids…
Among the most anticipated series of the year, Tim Burton’s Wednesday was certainly among those at the top of the list of many viewers. Wednesday’s character is iconic, indelible in the mind of anyone who has ever approached Barry Sonnenfeld’s 90s films. The strength of the character lies above all in the immediate visual recognition: Wednesday’s costumes, her hairstyle and in general her aesthetic appearance has become part of popular culture. Anyone knows, even if only by hearsay, Wednesday Addams. Anyone can tell her apart in the crowd and instantly recognize her cosplayers. It is therefore impossible that a series starring the young Addams family can go unnoticed.
The involvement of Tim Burton contributed to increasing expectations and anticipation towards the Netflix show. The much-loved director of Edward Scissorhands, 1989’s Batman and The Chocolate Factory hadn’t sat behind the camera for a long time. The recent failures received with Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and Dumbo did not help the new phase of Burton’s career, so much so that since 2019 he has no longer take part in a film project. Some consider him an outdated and inadequate director for current times and for those who continue to love him precisely because of his peculiar vision, perhaps the character of Wednesday Addams is the right one to relaunch Tim. I am sure that fans of the director will be the first to watch the Netflix series but with them also many young viewers who have never yet approached Burton’s films and will instead be able to do so once Wednesday’s viewing is over, provided that the show attracts success in their eyes.
Wednesday Review and Analysis
The idea behind Wednesday is an interesting one. Tim Burton takes an iconic character like Wednesday Addams and follows his path to independence. He follows her transition from child to teenager. The “teen” plot, which as we know, is what the platform’s algorithms are asking for today (René Ferretti and the screenwriters of Boris know something about it…). The history of teens, therefore, is an obligatory path, because today every product must have a target. But it is also an interesting journey. Bringing Wednesday to a high school leads the series towards the classic teen drama, towards the stories of the American Mean Girls that we have seen in many films, with bullying, likes and dislikes. On the other hand, the Addams Family legacy leads the story towards a mystery-fantasy-horror plot. With a new element, that of the investigation.
Wednesday’s coming-of-age works, and it’s very interesting. Because, in the classic series of The Addams Family, the black and white one, and in some other adaptations, we have never found a real psychological insight into Wednesday. She was the little girl to whom she touched some gag, which helped create the ensemble of that family so macabre and funny. But what she had inside her, who that little girl was, we were never told. And that’s why we like Tim Burton’s series. What works less, to tell the truth, is the yellow plot, that part of the investigation in strong colors which is the main storyline of the series, it is an element that never seems to fascinate: it does not scare, it does not intrigue. But it is that we would like to know more about Wednesday, about his friendships and loves, about his likes and dislikes, about that particular, standoffish and liberating way of addressing people. And every time the story of the investigation starts, we would like to return to what we are talking about.
To shine, in what is a choral story, is Jenna Ortega, who brings many new features to her character. Her Latin features give a slightly different nuance to the little Addams house, and so does the actress’s slender figure, together with her wide-open hazel eyes and her ever-tight heart-shaped mouth. Yes, because Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday never smiles, and her skill also lies in being able to be expressive, especially with her gaze. Alongside her, in a cast that sees Catherine Zeta Jones as the iconic mother Morticia Addams, it is a pleasure to find Christina Ricci, who was at the cinema Wednesday, and who now returns as Marylin Thornhill, a professor at Nevermore Academy.
Tim Burton brings young Addams’ tale his own with several personal touches. Of Edgar Allan Poe we said. But there are also quotes from Carrie – The gaze of Satan, Stephen King reinterpreted by Brian De Palma and musical goodies ranging from Nothing Else Matters by Metallica and Paint It, Black, by the Stones in the cello version, up to the beautiful In Dreams by Roy Orbison which, in the cinema, had been made famous, as a nightmarish song, by David Lynch in his Blue Velvet. The school for Peculiar Children that Wednesday arrives takes us back again to Tim Burton and his Miss Peregrine – Home for Peculiar Children, which in turn took over a bit of X-Men school.
Yes, because, as the author admitted at Lucca Comics And Games, Wednesday is Tim Burton. As were Tim Burton Edward Scissorhands, Willy Wonka of The Chocolate Factory and even Dumbo. What is one of our favorite directors who always continued to talk about himself? And this little girl who sees everything in black and white is him after all, that young animator that Disney sent away because his shorts were too macabre. It was Frankenweenie, and we will have seen it as a film after so many years. Proudly black and white. Once again, after having done it often with Disney, Burton is dealing with a distribution giant, namely Netflix. Which has always meant negotiation and compromise.
Hence the choices to create a product with a precise target, and probably also to give a thriller/detective touch to the story. And then it’s also up to you to decide whether this suits you or not: we can say that Burton was very good at shooting a target-oriented series while remaining faithful to his poetics. Or that he disappointed us that he followed such strict logic. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. Returning to our incipit, and to that “ Don’t believe anything you see and only half of what you hear ”: this too is typical of Burton. Just think of his great film Big Fish.
In general, the series pays due importance to mental health there is no shortage of meetings with the psychologist and the right doses of recommendations that are needed when approaching a similar product. However, what pleasantly surprised me about the Netflix show is the relational focus, the peculiarity of Wednesday is underlined and the probable psychological problems that afflict the girl, but the character is put in a different light for the first time. What interests the directors of the show is how Wednesday grows and improves in terms of social relationships. Courageous but also a successful choice.
I just have to congratulate you on the decision to set the series in Nevermore Academy, the high school for people with special abilities. On Wednesday she initially appears as the strangest of the strange, the one who stands out for further peculiarities even within a group of bizarre and unconventional people. It is no coincidence that the only uniform without colors is that of Wednesday. The most interesting aspect is that the series chooses to dwell on this concept only for an aesthetic connotation and if we want to start but then lose this focus in favor of something else. Wednesday is yes, the most particular pupil of the school but it’s not just that.
After eight episodes, the series has told a lot and perhaps even too much (some scenes and some narrative lines could easily be removed from the final editing without depriving the show of anything important or decisive) but I am sure that the potential for other seasons is still Very. Furthermore, Tim Burton himself declared in Lucca that he already has several ideas on how the story of the most famous black and white girl on TV could continue. Now we just have to wait and hope for a prompt announcement from Netflix about the renewal of the series. If the show has the success assumed, I don’t think it will be long in coming. Fingers crossed.
And obviously, Wednesday is the strong point of the series: Jenna Ortega gives an excellent interpretation of the character, creating a modern version of the girl but always maintaining that great cynicism and detachment that have always distinguished the young Addams. It must be said that going forward with the narration, inevitably and due to plot needs, some of Wednesday’s main characteristics disappear, but it could have been expected precisely because the turn of events was easily predictable. Perhaps a more gradual and better-distributed change in the episodes would have been better, rather than inserting it suddenly in the last events of the series.
As for the other characters, surely the public will want to see more of the members of the Addams family: Catherine Zeta-Jones is already iconic thanks to her stupendous Morticia and the almost grotesque synergy and magnetism with Luis Guzman’s Gomez is practically perfect. The same goes for Fred Armisen, who plays an over-the-top Uncle Fester and a great Wednesday trouble buddy. Moving on to Wednesday’s classmates and teachers at Nevermore, each of them is characterized in the best way, managing to make everyone from roommate Enid (Emma Myers) to principal Larissa Weems (Gwendoline Christie), incredibly recognizable and ready to enter the public’s memory.
On the technical side, if from the trailers released, what the series seemed to lack was precisely the cartoonish touch of the American director, watching Wednesday it’s easy to prove wrong. All the scenes shot inside the Nevermore Academy recall the sets and locations of films from the past, starting from the attic of the sweet Edward Scissorhands, up to Miss Peregrine‘s special children’s academy, while the scenes shot in the woods – we are sure they will be fundamentals – reminiscent of the locations of Sleepy Hollow. Tim Burton’s manneristic and classic gothic tone is much more visible in the scenes shot indoors when thanks to the scenography it is possible to almost touch the director’s style. The director is Tim Burton “only” in the first four episodes: the remaining ones are shot by Gandja Monteiro (the fifth and sixth) and by James Marshall, who took care of the last two, i.e. the more rhythmic and more action the show. In any case, even in the second part of the series, Burton’s hand is perceived, as he is the executive producer of the show, even if it must be said that in terms of the characterization of the characters something is lost, precisely because some peculiar traits of Burton’s personality are sacrificed Wednesday to leave room for plot and action.
However, all that glitters is not gold and the main flaw of this first season – any hooks for the future are left – on Wednesday is the show’s desire to put too much iron on the fire. Too many subplots are opened which are then reconnected to the main plot in an excessively forced way or are perhaps left there, ready to be collected in the future. Some strands are weak or confusing because it is not clear why the series is telling that dynamic. A few fewer storylines would have helped the smoothness of a series which in its central episodes perhaps slows down the pace a little too much because it had thrown too many hooks in too little time.
Wednesday Review: The Last Words
Wednesday on Netflix is huge yes, the series directed and produced by Tim Burton has the merit of being able to expertly mix some elements such as horror, yellow, and dark comedy but also the coming-of-age story to create something that is nothing innovative, but true, but that works great. Jenna Ortega is an excellent Wednesday Addams and Tim Burton’s style goes perfectly with the world that the series wants to tell. The direction is excellent, both in the episodes directed by Burton and in those of the second part of the season and net of some storylines that weigh down the flow of the narrative, the public will be able to get involved in a plot that is perhaps too predictable but still enjoyable.
