The 2020 adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Witches is a sinister delight.
But there's a whole lot in this magical movie that probably sails right over younger viewers' heads.
Keep watching to discover the details that only the grown-ups in the audience will notice.
Our hero, who is unnamed in the book but identified as Charlie in the film,
begins his tale in the last month of 1968. For most kids, this setting probably just
comes across as nebulous olden times. But adults should recognize that year for its
historical significance involving the American civil rights movement.
This struggle isn't present in the book, but it became very relevant once it was
decided to center this adaptation around Black characters in the American South.
On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
Riots broke out in the wake of his death, placing more pressure than ever on President Lyndon B.
Johnson to enact change. April 11 saw the passing of the Fair Housing Act,
which prevents housing discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin,
and religion. While The Witches never explicitly engages with these events, setting its story 1968
nevertheless unavoidably adds a new layer of complexity and tension to the tale.
In both the book and the film, Charlie learns everything he knows about witches
from his grandmother. However, the movie never explains how she came to be quite so
knowledgeable about supernatural creatures. All she tells Charlie is that when she was a child,
she saw her friend Alice transform into a chicken after accepting a
piece of candy from a strange lady she later learned was the Grand High Witch.
But that encounter didn't teach Grandma that witches are bald under their wigs and hats,
that they have claws and a heightened sense of smell, and that they don't have toes. Furthermore,
the entire reason she and Charlie pack up and head to a hotel is because she
insists that once a witch sets her sights on a child, she'll never give up looking for them.
Also, even though she saw the Grand High Witch when she was a child,
she doesn't appear to be constantly living in fear of her. Why didn't the Grand High
Witch pursue her? Did Grandma manage to repel her somehow? The movie never gives us answers
to these questions, but whatever those answers are, we're sure that backstory is interesting.
When Grandma realizes that a witch is after her grandson, she calls in a favor with her cousin,
who spent three decades as the executive chef at the Grand Orleans Imperial Island Hotel.
It is, according to Grandma, "the swankiest hotel in all of Alabama." Furthermore, the clientele
consists entirely of rich white people, which is why Grandma believes they'll be safe there.
Once they arrive at the hotel, Grandma's words take on additional meaning. The Grand Orleans
Imperial Island Hotel isn't a real place, but there's no mistaking that it's meant to resemble
a converted plantation home. This immediately calls to mind America's history of slavery,
which forced Black people to work for rich white people and endure endless abuse that
was enabled in large part by not enough people making a fuss. This is a parallel
to what happens in the movie that children might not catch, but adults absolutely will.
All members of the hotel staff seen in The Witches are Black, while all the guests
except for Grandma and Charlie are white. When Grandma first pulls up in front of the hotel,
the bellhop is initially confused why she's there and is surprised to hear that she's a guest.
Once he realizes that she's serious, he seems delighted and refuses a tip as he takes her bags.
This dynamic might go over younger viewers' heads, but adults are sure to grasp its significance.
Lateron , once Grandma has taken the Grand High Witch's case full of money, she makes a point of
giving every member of the hotel staff a $100 tip on her way out the door. For adults who understand
the racial power dynamics that would've been at play in 1968 Alabama, Grandma's generosity is
a kindness as much as it is a triumph. There's a camaraderie between her and the staff that other
guests don't have, and their actions toward each other communicate an unspoken acknowledgement of
it. Despite being on opposite sides of the hotel hierarchy, they're all part of the same community.
After Grandma receives the key to her room, the hotel manager spots her and gets a suspicious
look in his eye. Once he learns who she is, his expression clears, but even then,
he still attempts to put her down. First, he holds her key away from her while prattling
on about her room, ignoring her coughing fit. He then leans down to tell Charlie:
Adults won't miss the unmistakable racial power dynamics at play in this scene. If Grandma had
been white, the manager surely wouldn't have given her presence in the lobby a second thought.
And even though he smiles throughout their encounter, his actions and language convey
that he is making sure that she knows that he is the one in control of the situation,
and that she and Charlie should feel grateful to be allowed in at all.
It's a superficially benign encounter with a very ugly undercurrent. In addition to
the real-world bigotry present in this scene, it's also loaded with ironic tension, since the
guests who really shouldn't be allowed into the hotel are greeted warmly immediately afterwards.
When Grandma and Charlie check in, they're told that their room number is 766,
which turns out to be directly above the Grand High Witch's suite in 666.
Those numbers have more significance than just their locations within the hotel.
In the Bible, 666 is a number associated with the Antichrist in the Book of Revelation,
which certainly adds some additional meaning to Grandma's explanation that witches are demons.
While there's not much more religious subtext besides that in The Witches, the room numbers
are certainly meant to raise eyebrows, driving home that the Grand High Witch is indeed meant
to be the ultimate embodiment of evil. It's a pretty dark reference to make in a film targeted
toward children. But unless the kids watching are particularly well-versed in the Bible's
apocalyptic literature, they're not likely to think of 666 as anything more than just a number.
After being turned into a mouse alongside his friend Bruno,
Charlie hatches a plot with Grandma to use the mouse-maker potion against the
witches by putting it in their pea soup. They ultimately pull it off,
as dozens of witches get dramatically transformed into grotesque rats in the middle of dinner.
Despite witnessing this transformation as it happens, the hotel staff immediately sets
about exterminating their guests. Meanwhile, the other guests panic,
with most of them running while screaming from the dining room. Although the audience knows that the
sudden presence of vermin in the dining room isn't due to any negligence on the part of the hotel,
the other guests have no way of knowing that. Combined with the inevitable news
that an entire group staying at the hotel has gone missing, the story of an out-of-control
rodent infestation will likely lead to a steep decline in business, if not a complete shutdown.
The Grand High Witch has a trunk full of crisp $100
bills in her room. Her assurance to the other witches that they don't have to
worry about money because she has it taken care of is readily accepted by her acolytes.
Of course she's got piles of cash, they seem to think, she's the Grand High Witch after all!
But adults in the audience may wonder exactly where that money came from,
as it seems that witches can't just conjure cash out of thin air. The film implies that the Grand
High Witch doesn't age, as evidenced by Grandma's earlier encounter with her, so it's possible she's
just been fastidiously frugal all these years. Her decision to go with whichever soup is cheapest for
dinner certainly nods to that, but those bills seem a little too fresh to represent years worth
of savings, or even a large cash withdrawal from the bank. Is it counterfeit? Did she steal
it? Did she create it using magic that the other witches can't use? And perhaps most importantly,
are those bills traceable, and will Grandma's use of them draw the attention of law enforcement?
From the perspective outside the hotel, both Bruno's parents and Grandma go on
vacation with their children and then come back without them. What's more,
neither is likely to file a missing person report, since they know the kids are mice now.
Both Grandma and the Jenkins family will probably proceed with life as usual, just without children.
But this is bound to raise some questions, once other people realize the kids are missing.
From Charlie's point of view, he and Grandma are about to begin traveling the world to hunt
down more witches. But the reality might not end up being so simple. It's possible that
Grandma knows the authorities may eventually start wondering what happened to Charlie,
especially since she gained custody of him so soon before he disappeared. And she may also realize
that while the two of them are indeed really hunting witches together, they're also on the lam.
She could try explaining what happened, but it's not likely anyone would believe her,
especially considering the windfall of cash she recently procured.
The Witches ends with an older version of Charlie teaching a group of child
recruits about witches. But it's never explained where these kids come from,
where their parents are, or how they'll be able to travel all over the world hunting witches.
It's also hard to tell exactly where Charlie's giving his presentation.
It doesn't appear to be a school auditorium or gymnasium, which rules out some of the very places
it might be reasonable for Charlie and Grandma to have access to a large group of children.
Although even if that were the case, one would have to wonder where all the teachers are.
It seems most likely that they're in some sort of basement or bunker. But in that case, how did
they round up enough children to fill it? Are they out at playgrounds recruiting kids to their cause?
Are the parents involved in any way, or did all these kids sneak out of their homes without their
knowledge? And perhaps most baffling, how are these kids supposed to travel internationally
in order to track down every witch in the world and turn them into mice? Charlie acts as though
sending children out as international assassins is a totally reasonable thing to do, but we have more
than a few questions about who these kids are, and how they're going to pull it off successfully.
Putting aside the logistics of the child-led mass-assassination plan, it's worth realizing
that all of the kids involved are being sent out into the world to battle supernatural creatures to
the death. Sure, they're armed with magic potions, but if any of their plans go even slightly wrong,
the witches will swoop in to try to kill them, and they will very likely succeed.
Young viewers aren't likely to pick up on the potentially horrific implications
of sending out swarms of children to engage in life-or-death combat with superpowered creatures,
but adults surely will. You could be optimistic and assume an overwhelmingly high success rate,
but that doesn't seem likely, considering how many hiccups Charlie's own plan hit along the
way. So it's likely that at least a few of these children will get caught and subsequently eaten.
It's possible that Charlie doesn't realize this. He is just a teenager, after all.
Or perhaps he thinks a few kids' lives are a reasonable price to pay to achieve his goals.
And that's not exactly someone you'd want leading you into battle.
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