The Witches

 STORY: Based on Roald Dahl’s 1983 novel by the same name, ‘The Witches’ is about an orphaned boy whose encounter with the Grand High Witch turns into a dramatic tale of courageous rescue and revenge.

REVIEW: Following the death of his parents in a horrific car accident, a young Hero Boy (Jahzir Kadeem Bruno) is taken in by his grandmother (Octavia Spencer), who lives in a dusty old town of Alabama. ‘I am sad for you, but I am not sorry for you,’ his grandma tells him, egging him on to start living his life again. Soon the old lady’s infectious energy and love pulls Hero Boy out of his grief. He even gets a pet mouse and names it Daisy. One day Hero Boy encounters a strange lady, who offers him a candy but he spots a snake crawling out of her clothes. The boy freaks out and runs to his grandma, who later explains him that the lady was indeed a witch. She even narrates her own witch encounter during her childhood. The incident had left her deeply shaken because the witch had turned her best friend into a chicken. Fearing the worst for her grandson, she whisks him away to the grandest hotel in town. She believes the witches only prey on the most vulnerable and poor kids. But to their great horror, a large delegation of the witches led by the Grand High Witch (Anne Hathaway) comes down to the same hotel for a convention. Disguised as affluent glamourous ladies, these witches are on a mission to wipe out every child from the face of the earth, by turning them into mice.

Narrated like a tale from the folklore in Chris Rock’s reassuring voice, ‘The Witches’ promptly gets into the action mode. Co-writer and director Robert Zemeckis keeps his retelling honest to the source material. He makes it more exciting by adding dollops of thrilling adventures and slick animation. And if you haven’t read the book or watched the 1990 version, you might even find the plot quite unpredictable and full of spooky surprises. Especially, the elaborate scene where the Grand High Witch addresses her subordinates and encounters the kids for the first time in the grand hall. The period of 1968 is deftly portrayed with attention to detail and much of the action is restricted within the Grand Hotel.

But what really lifts the viewer experience is Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway’s uninhibited act as the Grand High Witch. Elaborate special effects and clever prosthetics transform Hathaway into a bewitching badass with wide grins, flaring nostrils, deformed feet and clawed hands. The actress puts up quite an animated yet spirited performance that’s spookily exciting and delectably dark. Yes, it is over-the-top with a thick loud Eastern European accent, but she gets it right.Matching her with an equally strong yet restrained act is another Oscar winner Octavia Spencer. The talented actress finely delivers some of the most deeply meaningful dialogues that help build her character. Jahzir Kadeem Bruno is convincing as the daring kid, who takes on an entire coven of witches. Kristin Chenoweth is the assertive voice of Daisy, the pet mouse.

In the end, ‘The Witches’ is a simple story made grandly entertaining with all its crafty ingredients firmly in place. Enough to cast its magic spell on children of all ages.