Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Review
by Susan Granger (ssg722 AT aol DOT com)December 20th, 2004
Susan Granger: "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" (Paramount Pictures)
The series of eleven wickedly delightful children's novels written and narrated by the mysterious Lemony Snicket (a.k.a. writer Daniel Handler) have now come to the silver screen.
The three Baudelaire children have lost their parents and their home in a horrific fire and are sent by a blustery banker (Timothy Spall) to live with a series of unscrupulous relatives. The worst is greedy cousin Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), a terrible villain and worse actor, who is grimly determined to get his hands on their inheritance. So 14 year-old Violet, an imaginative inventor, her younger brother Klaus, a voracious reader, and biting baby sister Sunny must use brains and courage in order to survive unexpectedly ill-fated encounters with kindly snake-loving Uncle Monty (Billy Connolly) and nervous, grammar-obsessed Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep).
Under Brad Silberling's direction, production designer Rick Heinrichs creates a gloomy, gothic fantasy world well suited to Robert Gordon's overly ambitious screenplay which adapts and somewhat revises the first three books. It's too bad that Snicket's educational, dementedly witty and whimsical wordplay is truncated, although baby Sunny's subtitles are truly hilarious. As the orphans, Violet Browning, Liam Aiken and toddler twins Kara and Shelby Hoffman are perfectly cast - with Jude Law voicing Lemony Snicket, who is only shown in silhouette. But it's Jim Carrey's admittedly over-the-top performance propels the enchantment along with Meryl Streep's. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" is a humorously sinister 7, reinforcing the concept of family and the long-held belief that adults just don't listen to children as often as they should. It's holiday fun for everyone.
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