There is a beauty and innocence in the visions of Tim Burton that make the prospect of a descent into madness wonderfully appealing. It can be argued that the eccentric director has no peer in telling a story that captures the childhood experience, which is as much about wonder and laughter as it is about learning who you are, and the dark places of your imagination that made night lights such a necessity.
And in that regard, Burton’s latest, a retelling of Lewis Carroll’s classic is a perfect union of story, and storyteller. Alice in Wonderland is the quintessential childhood tale, and every one of Burton’s films represents, in one way or another, a tumble down a magical rabbit hole.
The story picks up with Alice (Mia Wasikowska) a young woman of 19, headstrong, imaginative, but emotionally adrift after the loss of her like-minded father. She finds herself being pressured into an arranged engagement with a gastrointestinally-challenged, anemic Duke named Hamish, who sums up his idea of marital bliss by informing his fiance-to-be, “It would be best to keep your visions to yourself. When in doubt remain silent.” Faced with a lifetime with the simpering fop, Alice opts for plan B — chasing a white rabbit in a vest coat, and falling into Wonderland (or as the native’s call it, “Underland”)
Alice enters a world where the Red Queen (played pitch-perfectly by Helena Bonham Carter) has wrested control of the Kingdom from her sister the White Queen (a miscast Anne Hathaway). Bonham Carter rules with an iron fist and a bulbous head and in Underland, all eyes look to Alice as the champion that can defeat the Red Queen’s WMD, the fearsome Jabberwocky.
The cast of characters remains mostly the same with the Cheshire Cat, and Absolem, the Blue Caterpillar voiced perfectly by British greats Stephen Fry, and Alan Rickman, and predictably Johnny Depp, as the Mad Hatter, reprises his role as scene-stealer. Depp, who indicates when the Hatter has become unhinged by dipping into a deep Scottish brogue, and incorporates a trilling laugh that is reminiscent of Tom Hulce in 1984′s classic Amadeus, proves once again why he and Burton are a match made not in heaven, but in cinematic Wonderland.
The great surprise of the film is the relative unknown Mia Wasikowska. Many young actresses would see the opportunity to play opposite greats like Depp and Bonham Carter as a call to theatrical arms. The Aussie actress Wasikowska is an seemingly effortless breath of fresh air.
Much has been made about the last minute adaption of the 2D film to a 3D format to ride the box office coat tails of the wildly successful Avatar. Yet, where Cameron’s picture relied on the technology to draw the audience in, the use of it in Alice in Wonderland is ancillary to Burton’s reworking of the popular story. Without the technology that Cameron quite literally invented, the Avatar story is wooden and recycled fare. Burton takes a story that almost every child has heard at least once, and reinvents it. In one scene, Depp’s Hatter turns to Alice, eyes wide with concern, and asks, “Have I gone mad?” Alice, echoing her father, replies, “Yes, but all the best people are.” A sentiment that Burton has proved time and time again.
Photo by centralasian via Flickr.
