Netflix has two drops this week that showcase how adaptations can work, although some better than others. Matilda the Musical comes from the original story of Roald Dahl, had been turned into a film, then a musical, and here’s the film adaptation of the musical. White Noise is a densely textured Don DeLillo novel, now transitioning to a film.

Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical (Netflix UK) – Matthew Warchus is the creative director at the Old Vic, and he directed the hit West End musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Matilda. He’s now turned the stage musical into a film and it’s a wonderfully conceptualized adaptation that relies on the production freedom that making a film entails. It’s positioned on the imaginative use of exaggeration. From the moment the film opens, we’re thrust into a make-believe world of color and exaggerated cuteness; and then we’re put off balance by the exaggerated stupidity, then meanness of Matilda’s parents. It’s a great study in contrast, and when time flies so we meet Matilda (Alisha Weir) as a young girl, we’re more than ready to suspend disbelief and just be taken on this Warchus ride.

The benefits of doing so become apparent when we finally enter the grounds of the Trunchbull school (or institution) that Matilda enrolls in. There, we finally meet Miss Agatha Trunchbull (Emma Thompson); and it’s a great exaggerated portrayal by Thompson that we delight in. You’ll never forget what she does with her dislike for pigtails, and how Thompson delivers her lines is a sustained hoot. The choreography of the children is impressive, and I’ll salute Warchus for making the production numbers such visual delights. While there is a middle portion that could have your interest waning, it’s compensated by the terrific final act, and how Warchus brings the film home. Do watch this, as it brings the Dahl spirit vividly back to life, and is undoubtedly, one of the better adaptations of his stories.

White Noise (Netflix USA) – Published in 1985, the Don DeLillo novel was hailed as one of his masterpieces, and it was commented on that this would be one difficult book to adapt to film. Talking of trauma and anxiety via inner monologue from the characters – a ‘nuclear’ family; the plot centered on an airborne toxic event – and this was written a year before Chernobyl happened, and 35 years before our COVID pandemic. Now we have noted Director Noah Baumbach taking on the responsibility of transitioning the book to film, and Baumbach is known more for lengthy dialogues and specializing in the milieu of New York academics and hipsters. On the surface, it didn’t look like one of those proverbial matches made in Heaven.

Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig (Mrs. Baumbach in real life) lead the cast as heads of the aforementioned family, and Don Cheadle starts off the film with a diatribe about how car crashes can be seen as emblematic of the American Dream, being constantly made bigger and better, and that we need to go beyond the deaths and destruction. As a family being forced to evacuate their home, and with Prof. Gladney (Driver) as a man exposed to the chemicals in the air for over two minutes, there’s Death at the doorstep of the family and with the father in particular. The dialogue comes off stilted and stiff at several junctures of the film. And while there is something interesting being said about panic and disasters, it’s evident that the commentators of 1985 hit the nail on the head, and this may have best been left on the bookshelf. Even Gerwig seems lost in her husband’s film.