Being ordinary almost always is not a very good thing. Contrarily, those on the other end of the spectrum, the different ones will disagree. They want nothing more than to be able to hide in the shadows or disappear in a crowd.
Tim Burton is no stranger to peculiarity. He’s based a career in filmmaking on the subject of being different. Most of his films feature out-of-this-world protagonists: case in point Edward Scissorhands , The Nightmare before Christmas , Sleepy Hollow , Corpse Bride, and a lot more.
So, adapting the 2011 book, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was perhaps right up Burton’s alley. The book is a complex, enthralling tale about a world that the ‘ordinary’ and ‘normal’ are not aware of. Living in a continuous loop spanning 24 hours are a ragtag bunch of peculiar children: they’ve got powers such as unnatural strength, the ability to manipulate air, temporarily revive dead bodies, set fire with a touch, control nature or simply be invisible.
Their caretaker, Miss Peregrine, is an Ymbryne with the ability to turn time and transform into a bird. Usually a woman, an Ymbryne, is in charge of young peculiars to protect them against evil forces. The antagonist here are the tall and long-limbed, eyeless monsters known as hollowgasts (once-peculiars) that seek to devour the eyes of peculiar children (with tentacles in their mouth) to return to their human form.
Not better than the book
As is often the case, the book is bound to be better than a film. And since I have not read Ransom Biggs debut novel, the best thing I can say about Burton’s adaptation is the intrigue its piqued in me to check out the literary effort. Unfortunately, despite not reading Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children , I can safely say the film can’t have come close to making the same impact. Only because the film left me, on more than one occasion, baffled, when I’m sure the book would have taken the time and words to explain and elaborate.
The film, like the book, tells the tale of Jacob Portman’s (a plastic, un-emoting Asa Butterfield) experiences in Miss Peregrine’s (brilliant Bond girl Eva Green) time loop. After his grandfather, Abe, is found attacked and eyeless, Jacob is instructed to find Peregrine in the children’s home where Abe was brought up. So off he goes with his father to the Welsh island of Cairnholm. Here, he must use his own peculiarity to protect the other children from Mr. Barron, (the scary Samuel L. Jackson with the best lines in the film), a Wight (the human form of the hollowgasts) who wants to use the essence of Ymbrynes to become immortal. Just trying to explain the premise of the film is an exhaustive effort, imagine executing it on the big screen replete with special effects?
Edge-of-the-seat moments
For his part, Burton has done a spectacular job of making Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children look fantastic. There are edge-of-the-seat moments when something bad is about to happen and those wonderfully sun-kissed sequences that will make you want to move to Wales.
Other times, Burton’s unique ability to personify objects is deeply nostalgic. But in the end, the film is too complicated with an undecided focus. The fantasy soon gives way to horror, often punctuated with humour and, unfortunately, never fully being able to find its way.
With so much to pack into two-something hours, the star cast , which includes the likes of Judi Dench, Rupert Everett, Chris O’Dowd and Allison Janney, never quite gets its due screen time, let alone a proper character sketch.
Worse yet, is the absolutely mind-boggling concept of travelling between time loops, which I still haven’t quite grasped despite extensive Internet scouring.
Watch the film not to understand it, but for the way it will leave you feeling. Watch it for the relationship between grandfather and grandson or the scenic beauty of Wales and the wonderful cinematography that goes from imaging the sun on your skin to making your bones feel the biting cold.
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is a hodgepodge of complications, but it’s an enjoyable one-time watch just for the way it looks.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (English)
Starring: Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Chris O'Dowd, Allison Janney, Rupert Everett, Terence Stamp, Ella Purnell, Judi Dench and Samuel L. Jackson.
Director: Tim Burton
Runtime: 127 mins
