Spoiler Warning! Review of Wednesday on Netflix
When I heard that director Tim Burton was coming back with an Addams family adaptation, naturally I knew I was gonna have to see it.
Overall I did enjoy it but I have some big critiques. So if you’re just looking for a few hours of aesthetic TV, go right on ahead and watch it. Read on for in-depth thoughts.
First of all, if you haven’t already, please go read this amazing article by Emmet Asher-Perrin over at tor.com. It very eloquently sums up much of my thoughts and feelings about this adaptation.
Though Burton and the other powers that be behind the scenes clearly wanted to show their love for previous iterations of these characters, I can’t help feeling that they didn’t stay true to the Addams family.
Of course every adaptation has to have some room to stretch its wings and offer a new take. However, I feel with so many adaptations flooding screens these days, mainstream directors have lost sight of the soul of the original. Sometimes it feels like they are just using the IP (intellectual property) they are adapting in order to tell their own story but with a bigger budget from studio execs more likely to shell for a proven franchise.
I certainly don’t mean to drag Tim Burton. I’ve been a fan of his work for most of my life. He’s a true auteur and I think he really cares about the stories he tells and having something real to communicate with younger audiences. However, I’m not sure what he was trying to say with this.
Bold prediction? Riverdale and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina were used as comp titles in the pitch for this show. I’m imagining a sentence like “The Addams family but we’re gonna do it like these two insanely successful flagship shows of your network. There’s a boarding school!”
Tonally, I think this tracks. I haven’t looked up with the other creators of the show besides Burton have done but I would be very surprised if there were no alums of either of these shows in the mix. I wasn’t a huge fan of either of those shows but I didn’t mind this take, really.
What I minded was the messed up family dynamics and lack of internal consistency. It was incredibly difficult to tell when Wednesday was trying to be “mean” or when she was just being herself. In the previous movies and the TV show, I think the internal logic was always pretty clear. The family loved and supported each other unconditionally, and their love of the macabre was clearly delineated from actually wanting to cause harm to people. In short, they were witchy goths living their best lives. They never seemed to take death or pain seriously except as a matter of celebration. Spooky and kooky.
In this new version, Wednesday talks about having serial killers in her family almost as if its a point of pride but then goes on a single-minded solo quest to hunt down a killer before they can kill again. It was very confusing where the moral line was for the entire family.
I could find absolutely no reason for the mommy issues between Wednesday and Morticia except that the writers and directors just couldn’t figure out how to do a healthy relationship like the classic version or else felt they needed some extra drama for some reason? Having Morticia mentor and support Wednesday could have been so impactful and character-developing. What we got instead felt forced and really drained what could have been a joyful counterpoint to the dark and gruesome main thrust. Shadows always look deeper and darker when there’s a highlight nearby, which is part of why I think Wednesday’s relationship with her feminine and rainbow-loving roommate works so well.
Frankly, I didn’t understand Wednesday’s motivations for much of the show. Classic Wednesday wouldn’t have hesitated to try to make a friend or go after the boy she wanted because she took her cues mainly from the relationship love map set up by her devoted parents and her empowered mother. This version seemed driven by an almost Puritanical moralizing about what was right and what was wrong. This was especially weird considering she is very much not a Captain America type of figure who acts as a fairly reliable in-universe moral compass. She emotionally devastates and physically endangers those closest to her. The delightful chaos of previous versions was missing in its place was a near sociopathic apathy without consequence.
I do not understand why Wednesday’s friends and romantic interests keep coming back to her. There’s no reason for it. If someone treated me even half that poorly I would be gone. And yet a guy she got thrown in jail buys her a whole ass smart phone? Yes they did save each other’s lives but I really don’t think that makes up for an entire season of her treating him like garbage when he did nothing but try to help her. And when he calls her out on this she takes no responsibility and never even apologizes. The whole relationship is unsatisfying.
While I love that they did include a character with two moms, and then showed those moms on screen, I am utterly baffled by the fact that there are no canonical queer characters among the main characters. In this day and age you cannot tell me that a boarding school full of beautiful people and sirens has no queer characters. The main thrust of the show was supposedly solidarity and sticking up for outcasts, but where were the real-world marginalized groups being represented? Thematic inconsistency.
I have so many more thoughts about the excellent acting and many of the directorial and cinematic choices but this is getting quite long so please let me know if you would like a part 2.
