WEDNESDAY ADDAMS- PSYCHIC DETECTIVE
By Jason Godbey
When I heard that Tim Burton was attached to direct an Addams Family series, I thought “there couldn’t be a more perfect union of director and material.” One need only look at Burton’s body of work and the old Addams Family comic strip to see this would be the greatest synergistic matchup since Vincent Price and Edgar Allan Poe. Needless to say, Wednesday carried with it certain expectations.
Looking at it on its merits, Wednesday is much more than an extended Addams Family film. It’s Young Sherlock Holmes meets Harry Potter, and it answers the question “what do you do with Wednesday Addams?” a character who is essentially a one note collection of deadpan one liners. Answer: you make her into a goth sleuth with psychic premonitions, send her off to a Hogwarts-esque boarding school and give her a mystery to solve.
As seen in the trailer for the series, right from jump we meet Wednesday just as she is exacting revenge for her brother Pugsly who’s being bullied at school by members of the water polo team which raises the questions like “why would the Addams kids go to a regular high school? Weren’t they home-schooled by their weird parents in that mansion they live in?” And “what kind of high school has a water polo team?”
To get back at the bullies, Wednesday marches into their practice and unleashes a bunch of piranha into the pool which immediately attack the team leaving blood in the wake of their screaming and thrashing. It’s a creative way of saying “you shoved my brother in a locker, so I’m going to murder you.” Seems fair right?
Because this is a TV show, Wednesday is expelled, and instead of going to jail for assault with a deadly fish, her parents enroll her in Nevermore Academy, an Edgar Allan Poe inspired school for “outcasts” like sirens, werewolves, and vampires. There have been a series of murders on the outskirts of Jericho, the small town near Nevermore, and with that, our story is off and running.
We meet our cast of characters including Nevermore’s principal, Larissa Weems played to perfection by Gwendolyn Christie. Her bright and cheerful exterior could be masking something darker underneath. Christina Ricci is Wednesday’s teacher/house mother, Ms. Thornhill, and it’s great to see her return to the Addams Family having originated the role of Wednesday in the films. Wednesday’s roommate Enid Sinclair (Emma Myers) is the most chipper werewolf you’ll ever meet. Myers makes the role her own, and rises above the cliche elements of the character. she is more than just the contrast to Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday.
Wednesday is brilliant, well-read, a skilled fencer, an accomplished cellist, an author, and she has super powers. She has psychic premonitions when she touches people or objects a la Johnny Smith in The Dead Zone. Ortega plays her as a kind of renaissance savant on the Autism spectrum who happens to be the ultimate goth girl, allergic to color and obsessed with death. Ortega walks a fine line and manages to bring depth to the character who could be seen as a Mary Sue/psychopath (she did attempt a mass murder in the first five minutes of the pilot). Her deadpan, dry line delivery are dead-on for the character, and she has enough screen presence and charisma to carry the series.
As Morticia and Gomez Addams, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman look like they stepped out of the Gorey comic strip, but something just feels off about them. Unfortunately one can’t help but think of Anjelica Houston and Raul Julia from the Addams Family movies, and Zeta-Jones and Guzman pale in comparison (no pun intended). This may not be the fault of the actors entirely who seem to have decent enough chemistry, but more so the writing which can be clunky at times. Zeta-Jones manages with what she is given, but Guzman’s delivery sounds like he’s just read the line seconds before the take. He’s trying hard but seems miscast here. Perhaps he’ll grow into the role if we get a second season.
Director Burton puts his stamp on the material, but not overly so. Some of the design elements have his fingerprints all over them, but it doesn’t overwhelm the material unlike some of his other works like Charlie and The Chocolate Factory and the Alice in Wonderland films which seem to be over Burton-afied to the point of distraction. Here we see the Burton touch in the art direction and camera movement, and it works really well. We get feeling he loves this material and wants us to love it too.
Where the series writing might fall down in its dialogue (it has the sound of a bunch of adults attempting to write for teens) but gets picked up by its storytelling. There is a genuine mystery at the center of the story with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing until the end which is no small feat considering how savvy modern audiences are.
Wednesday is a fun show with enough chuckles to make you smile and enough mystery to keep you watching episode after episode. If you’re an Addams Family fan or you just want to have some fun with your inner goth child, I highly recommend it. All eight episodes of the first season are now streaming on Netflix.
