Her first payback, the one where she dyes her father’s hair wrong, happens after he tears out her book. They also got the sequence of events wrong. But in the books, the payback is not just that it is also her way of coping with the injustices thrust upon her. For example, one particular difference that irked us was Matilda’s trying to get back at her parents every time they wronged her as her way of paying them back. While the 1996 one at least tried to stay true to the story, this one went completely off the rails in the sense that it was more intent on turning it into a musical than capturing the essence of the story.
Neither of them managed to capture the complex mind of their heroine, as Roald Dahl intended. That is the exact reason we did not like “Matilda (1996)” or even the musical that has come out in 2022.
But with “Matilda,” there were nuances to be captured-that of a child wise beyond her years who was trying to survive in a neglectful household. “Charlie” was a fairly easy story to adapt from the book to the movie since the journey of the characters just went from strength to strength. He wasn’t happy about the ending being changed. It is famously said that he camped outside the theatres when “The Witches” was released and told people to just go read the book. On that note, Roald Dahl wasn’t a fan of his stories being adapted for the silver screen. That is what sets apart these stories from the one about the chocolate factory. It can be said that they gained a happy ending after all, but the path to it was laden with struggles not exactly meant for children. While “The Witches” is a bit more obvious since it does not come with an entirely happy ending, looking at “Matilda” in this day and age makes us aware of the tragedies of the primary protagonists, something we had not caught onto as children.
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