Strangely, my first encounter with Mr. Sugar wasn’t too dissimilar to how he discovers Dr. Chatterjee. I was about twelve years old, perusing the school’s library, “looking to see if [I] could find any of the sort of books [I] liked.” It was then, in the far corner of the fiction section, right down on the bottom left hand corner and “sticking out a little from the ones either side; I found the little green book that was to stick itself to the walls of my brain for the next thirteen years.

This was the first time I had read any of Dahl’s more mature stories. And reading it was like re-contextualising the life of an older relative after learning an, albeit harmless, truth. His twisted sense of humour, his insight into the horribleness of spoilt children and their parents, and his belief in the utter strangeness of life, all seemed to originate from these darker short stories.

Wes Anderson, known for his own sense of whimsy and the auteur behind one of the most adored Roald Dahl adaptations of all time, seemed like the perfect choice to bring The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar to the silver screen. Naturally, when I saw Netflix’s trailer a month ago, I just had to grab a copy of the book to read it again. As of writing, I have watched both Henry Sugar and the other piece that accompanied it in the book: The Swan. Having now seen Anderson’s takes on these classic stories, was I disappointed? Yes and no.

What didn’t disappoint were the fantastic hand crafted sets, the immaculate costumes and the quaint yet effective stop motion animations. I particularly liked how in both stories Roald Dahl himself, brought to life by the scarily similar Ralph Fiennes, plays the role of the narrator. What is especially interesting about these scene’s is that Anderson’s team painstakingly built an almost exact set of the author’s writing space. Dahl often went to a small hut behind his house to write. Cluttered with old maps and knick knacks, and completed by a simple lounge chair and make shift table, the space is very distinct compared to those of the library and café nomads like myself. As you can see from the comparison below, even the items hanging on the wall match up. It’s this kind of meticulous production design that sets Anderson apart from other directors.

However, all of what I’ve just gushed about is typical Wes Anderson. What isn’t, and what irks me the most about these adaptations, is the rush to get through the stories as quickly as possible.

While it is an awesome idea to literally read the stories line for line (Kip Williams’ Picture of Dorian Gray played with the same idea to great success) It’s best to give the actors time to really absorb and read the lines. But it seems Anderson, in attempt to be more playful and meta-textual, rushes through the stories at a frantic pace, as if the actors were forced to keep up with an audience that was rapidly losing interest. As scenes raced by, I felt more distracted than anything else. Before I could appreciate a scene I was whip panned to the next one.

The Swan suffered greatly from this. Ernie and Raymond, the two antagonists of the story, are supposed to slowly morph into these horrid monsters who would go as far as to kill one of their own classmates. Not only do we never see the boys in the short, we get to the climax, where the boys’ small violent acts have finally built up to them murdering their classmate, in mere minutes. The reader feels the torturous amount of time Peter spends in the clutches of his classmates, while the watcher feels little to nothing.

Granted, reading the stories beforehand means I’m going to be much more critical of how the material was presented. However, when the titular swan is about to be killed, the narrator slows right down. Finally at the pen ultimate moment I could enjoy the genuine anger and horror emanating from the actors. Yes, who would have thought when the scenes were allowed to breathe that is when I felt most excited? But those moments were far and few between and at the worst of times, felt cut short.

To be fair, the cutting of corners and rug pulls in Henry Sugar made for some entertaining visual gags, (a reflective cube creating the illusion of levitation being my favourite) but The Swan relying on an older and younger Peter to carry the whole story on their backs left me feeling sore. At least Henry Sugar felt like it was adapting something. If I wanted someone reading these stories to me at 1.75x speed I would have put on the audiobook.

It’s clear with Asteroid City and now these shorts that Anderson wants to wear more of his influences on his sleeve, showing the seems of the production in his films. But I fear that while it matches the quirkiness of his previous films, breaking the fourth wall has only diminished the heart that used to be there. Performances that were once dry are now stilted, flattening once charming characters in the process. Whimsical worlds have now become amusement park rides. As beautiful as those sets are, if all the wires and stagehands are visible then all we are left with is the imitation, the fake.

Now don’t get it twisted, I still find Anderson to be an excellent director, and while I’m disappointed my two articles on the man are negative, I do still enjoy the detail and fun he puts into his production. That has at least stuck around for the most part. I just miss the sincere love he used to have for his characters. Maybe I’m blinded by nostalgia, so I wouldn’t mind going back to revisit some of his older films. Either he’s really changed or I have. And either way, I don’t think I’m going to be happy with the result.

Thanks for reading! While this isn’t technically a Matinee Madness, I hope it was enjoyable nonetheless. May have more for you this week if you’re lucky, but otherwise, stay tuned!