Fairy Dusted: The Spiderwick Chronicles

By Bruce Collier February 21, 2008 Issue

Three discontented children transplanted to a tumbledown family mansion find themselves on the frontier between their world and fairyland. Instead of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, they meet a temperamental brownie, an anthropomorphic swine, and murderous goblins, all bent on securing a book of powerful magic. Mark Waters’ The Spiderwick Chronicles is based on a series of books aimed at children, teens, and grownups whose tastes run to the fantastical. I saw the movie with an audience of families. Judging from the kids’ whispered comments, most knew the series. I do not, but I did not feel left behind.

Like most genre films, The Spiderwick Chronicles follows a pattern. Troubled worlds collide, and somehow manage to help each other make things right. Kids believe, while adults are always the last to get it. The only way to deal with fear is to confront it and use the tools at hand, even if it’s just a quick wit and the ability to fit into small spaces. In this film, the young heroes are the Grace family — twins Jared and Simon (both played by Freddie Highmore), and teen sister Mallory (Sarah Bolger). All are smart. One boy is impetuous but erratic; the other is cautious but steady. Skeptical Mallory just happens to be a skilled sport fencer — a useful trade in fairy realms, which always seem to be set somewhere between Robin Hood and the Three Musketeers.

Mary-Louise Parker plays mom, aka Helen Grace. Helen’s character note is mostly frustration — at her impending divorce, relocation, and her kids. Parker spends the first part of the film arguing, then disappears to let the kids do their thing, and then reappears to join their fight. It’s a workmanlike job in a workmanlike role.

The Spiderwick Chronicles definitely belongs to the kids, and to the CGI-begotten troupe of creatures they encounter. There’s Thimbletack, voiced by Martin Short, a honey-chugging brownie whose occasional tantrums turn him into a Boggert (spelling approximate). Boggerts smash things, play ugly pranks, and talk like Danny DeVito. That’s inside the house. Outside is Hogsqueal, voiced by Seth Rogen, a bipedal pig that climbs trees and gobbles birds in flight. So much for the good guys.

The bad guys are a gang of bloodthirsty, dimwitted goblins, servants of arch villain Mulgarath, a shape-shifter acted and voiced by Nick Nolte. Mulgarath covets a book of fairy lore and powerful spells. The tome was compiled 80 years ago by the kids’ great-great uncle Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathairn), who disappeared in a cloud of sylphs, leaving his six-year-old daughter Lucinda to be institutionalized as insane. The kids slip through the goblins to seek out their now-octogenarian great aunt for help in fighting the threat.

Lucinda (played by Joan Plowright) answers the call. The rest is the movie. After a very brief exposition, the action begins and never lets up. The Spiderwick Chronicles cannot be accused of dragging. It could use a few quieter scenes here and there, free of special effects, to give the audience a break. Remember the second Indiana Jones movie? This has the same kind of virtually non-stop, frenzied action, a succession of fights and chases, flights, and hair’s-breadth escapes. The movie is only about 97 minutes long, but it seems shorter.

Though not an expert on fantasy literature, I can identify The Spiderwick Chronicles as being of the British School of fairy stories. There’s a country house, gardens, Victorian furnishings, and the wee folk speak like they learned English from Lewis Carroll. Though set in America, the actors playing the Grace children are both from the U.K., as is Plowright. Highmore and Bolger pull off flawless American accents, and Plowright is just too grand not to let her speak with her stage-trained voice. Why hire the former Lady Olivier and ask her to talk like a Yankee?

As usual, the fairies get most of the best lines. Strathairn does well as earnest, bemused Arthur, living among the sylphs and clueless as to how long he’s been away. The kids visit him courtesy of a friendly griffin, and — well, you’ll have to buy a ticket.

The Spiderwick Chronicles is rated PG. It earns the rating with scary characters, fatal violence, and kids-in-peril. Still, the message is family-friendly, with all the right life lessons scattered judiciously among the goblin body parts. There’s sure to be a sequel. Let’s hope Freddie Highmore has an equally talented younger brother.

Bottom line: Polished work, fun and engaging.

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