Editor’s Note: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children opens in wide theatrical release today, September 30, 2016.
Wanted or not, Tim Burton has returned with another foray into the Goth-flavored, family-friendly, comedic dark fantasy that once made him one of the most innovative, inventive filmmakers working within the anti-auteurist confines of the Hollywood system. By that was then (Ed Woods, Edward Scissorhands, Batman, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure) and this is now (Dark Shadows, Alice in Wonderland, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory). Burton’s style long ago devolved into stale repetition and self-parody. Nothing in Burton’s recent output suggested a return to old-school form. His latest endeavor, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, a flaccid adaptation of Ransom Rigg’s bestselling novel (the first in a series, of course), will do little to change that opinion. Filled with tired, trite tropes and conventions, and undermined by static, exposition-heavy storytelling, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will be the first and thankfully last entry in a never-will-be franchise.
Wanted or not, Tim Burton has returned with another foray into the Goth-flavored, family-friendly, comedic dark fantasy that once made him one of the most innovative, inventive filmmakers working within the anti-auteurist confines of the Hollywood system.
Burton tapped veteran screenwriter Jane Goldman (X-Men: First Class, Kick-Ass) presumably for her familiarity with the ins and outs of the superhero genre, but a combination of major deficiencies in the source material and her own uninspired approach doom Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children from the moment Jake Portman (Asa Butterfield), ostensible hero and audience stand-in, starts talking in voiceover mode about his boring, unfulfilling life as an American teenager in Smalltown, USA (somewhere in the bowels of Florida). A natural outsider with an old soul, Jake gravitates toward his grandfather, Abraham (Terence Stamp), a spinner of tall tales and fantastical creatures. Jake’s father, Frank (Chris O’Dowd), has little patience for his father’s stories and even less time for Jake’s eccentricities. Frank seemingly wants a normal, well-adjusted son, something Jake obviously can’t give him.
When Abraham perishes under mysterious circumstances, Jake begins to feel the tug and pull of the Hero’s Journey, the “Call to Adventure,” but that call involves an island off the coast of Wales where his grandfather spent several years as a young boy and the titular home for peculiar children. Jake’s psychiatrist, Dr. Golan (Allison Janney), convinces Frank a trip to the island will do them both good. Jake will move past the traumatic loss of his grandfather; Jake and Frank will bond. It doesn’t work out that way, of course. Exploring the island on his own, Jake discovers the bombed-out ruins of Miss Peregrine’s home. Before long, however, Jake’s disappointment gives way to joy when he encounters one of Miss Peregrine’s young charges, Emma Bloom (Ella Purnell), in the ruins. Almost as quickly, Jake finds himself back in time, 1943 to be exact, and a fully restored home filled with the peculiar children of the title.
It’s hard to shake the feeling that Burton and Goldman, realizing the inherent limitations of the source material, decided wheel spinning and time marking was a better alternative than finding creative solutions for what ails Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.
Emma soon reveals her special peculiarity: She’s a Floater. Without lead-lined boots, she’d simply float away into the sky. She can also control air with super-powerful lungs (a secondary power that unsurprisingly comes in handy later). The other occupants of the home include Olive (Lauren McCrostie), a Firestarter, Enoch (Finlay MacMillan), a Reanimator and Puppeteer, Millard (Cameron King), an Invisible Boy, Bronwyn (Pixie Davies), a Girl with Superhuman Strength, mask-wearing twins (Joseph and Thomas Odwell), and several others with less determinate, less important powers. Miss Peregrine (Eva Green) has a special power or two of her own: She can control time, creating Time Loops, a spatiotemporal sanctuary where the children can live, but not age, in peace, free of the world’s existential dangers, adult Peculiars and Slenderman-inspired monsters who hunt Miss Peregrine and her charges.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children spends the better part of the first hour in exposition-heavy world building with Jake, a Peculiar with easily the least interesting or compelling power (he can see monsters, making him the Peculiar’s de facto protector), walking and talking, sometimes with Emma (because what’s a YA adaptation without the obligatory teen romance), and sometimes with the frustratingly opaque Miss Peregrine. She eventually tells Jake everything, but her reason for holding back (to keep from becoming too attached to the Peculiars) makes little, if any, narrative or thematic sense. It makes perfect sense, however, as a delaying tactic. With Miss Peregrine withholding key information from Jake and through Jake, the audience, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children goes into stand-by mode, essentially awaiting the villain, Barron (Samuel L. Jackson, more or less reprising his Jumper character), to make an appearance and put his plan into motion.
By then, however, it’s hard to shake the feeling that Burton and Goldman, realizing the inherent limitations of the source material, decided wheel spinning and time marking was a better alternative than finding creative solutions for what ails Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, namely a dull, unengaging lead (through no fault of Butterfield’s lead performance), a story cobbled together, Frankenstein Monster-style, from better, more original sources (everything from classic and non-classic X-Men to Harry Potter and everything in between), superfluous characters (Peculiars 6-10), and unfocused, under-choreographed set pieces (too few, too late). To be fair, Burton’s flair for arresting visual imagery hasn’t deserted him, at least not yet. A scene aboard a sunken passenger ship involving Jake and Emma suggests Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children could have been so much more, so much better. Alas, we’re left with the film we have, not the film we wanted to have.
Tim Burton’s flair for arresting visual imagery hasn’t deserted him, at least not yet, but a dismal script and uninteresting characters prove that Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children could have been so much better. Alas, we’re left with the film we have, rather than the film we wanted.
