The Addams Family (2019)

Altogether Ooky (And I Don't Even Know What That MEANS!!)
or
"Are You Unhappy, Darling?" "Oh, Yes, Yes! Completely"*

I've written about how much I loved "The Addams Family" (both as a 1960's TV show and as a concept from Charles Addams' series of macabre  New Yorker cartoons from 1932 to his apparent death in 1988), and the rather "iffy" attempts to continue the perverse charm in Barry Sonenfeld's feature films and TV spin-off's. There's been a Broadway musical (that I know nothing about) and there were rumors a few years ago that Tim Burton was working on a stop-motion version—which might have been interesting. Burton might not have been entirely faithful to it, but he would have captured the spirit and the schtick that made the old series so enjoyable (as opposed to the watered-down "Munsters" that appeared on CBS at roughly (very roughly) the same time.

Well, that would have been interesting. And probably far more enjoyable than the latest re-boot of The Addams Family, written by Conrad Vernon, Pamela Pettler, Matt Lieberman, Erica Rivinoja and directed by Vernon and Greg Tiernan.

Kudo's to them for designing it closer to Addams' original conceptions (although they don't always make compelling characters—their version of Addams daughter Wednesday is particularly bland) and there are some rare body-snatches of Addams original material—like the line (*) in this post's title. But, the whole thing is barely enjoyable, particularly because some of the voice-casting is underwhelming, with the exception of Oscar Isaac's "Gomez" and Nick Kroll's "Uncle Fester."

But, there's also less emphasis on the family dynamics and more on their "otherness" from somewhat ordinary citizenry. That tactic has always been dull—unless the "normals" were weirder than the Addamses—and usually the least intriguing part of any "Addams" story. How many gawping reactions can you get before it gets old and starts decaying before your eyes? And this version of "The Addams Family" has an awful lot of that.

The film begins with the wedding of Gomez (Isaac) and Morticia (Charlize Theron—she tries, although the role would be better suited to another cast-member, Allison Janney) attended by the Addams Extended Family, but it gets interrupted by locals with torches and pitchforks—ordinary people are turned murderously monstrous by what they fear (now where have we seen that before?)** Escaping with Fester (Kroll) and "Thing" (their literal hand-servant), the joyously gloomy newly-weds head for their honeymoon in New Jersey (State Motto: "What Are YOU Looking At?), where they run down an escapee from an asylum for the criminally insane, who turns out to be Lurch (muttered by director Vernon), who will become their beloved man...er...creature-servant. Trying to return him to the asylum, they find the facility closed (by police tape), abandoned, and haunted. But, for them, it's merely a lovely fixer-upper dream-home to raise a family—but not from the dead—and put down gnarled roots.

Morticia is mortified that Wednesday starts to show interest in bling
"But, darling, pink is a gateway color!"

Cut to thirteen years later. The Addamses have an older daughter Wednesday (Chloe Grace Moretz) and son Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard, busy young man). Wednesday, full of woe, has grown rebellious ("But, darling, you have all the horrors of home right here!") and Pugsley is approaching an Addams right of passage. No, it's not a Bat Mitzvah (but thanks for going there), it's a Mazurka, in which he must demonstrate his prowess as a warrior with the Addams Scimitar. That's not Pugsley's style—he's more of an expert in explosives—and Gomez fears that, despite his worst efforts, Pugsley will be an embarrassment to the Family coming to witness the momentous event. This sentiment seems un-Addamsish.

Meanwhile, gentrification also challenges The Addams Family. At the base of their escarpment their mausoleum is perched on, a development has cropped up, sponsored by the Home, Art, and Garden Network (HAG-TV) and its principal make-over star, Margaux Needler (Janney). As if to push the point a little too far, the name of the town is "Assimilation," and the movie is consumed with her efforts to get rid of the eye-sore that sits in the cross-hairs of Assimilation's picture-windows.

Margaux stops by to give the Addams House a make-over.
The hair may be a political point.

Oh, there are good lines—at one point Wednesday runs away from home, insisting on going to public school (rather than "cage-schooling") and she's asked if she wants to go to the Mall to which she replies "Sure, I haven't seen a good mauling in ages"—but, it's relatively simple to get laughs out of Addams contrariness. The very fact that they're a morbid bunch makes them a natural anathema to normalcy and rife with satirical possibilities aimed at white picket fences. But, this version is a little too desperate to find them. And bludgeons them like a wooden stake.

There's an awful lot of music humor—too much of it—Lurch plays "Green Onions" on the organ and, at one point, "Everybody Hurts." It's a little weak. And it has the annoying habit of going back to the well of the TV-show for dread-cred, rather than stake out new territory. The film-makers make too much of a big deal of the pet lion (in the TV series, did we see that twice?) Did we really need an animated version of the TV-show's theme song that matches the live version to the last detail? Can't this be its own "thing" (so to speak?) without cleaving so close to the source? Are we to reduce the Addams Family to being a horrid cliche, with the very first movie in a re-boot series?

I know it's a children's movie and all, but the group who made the "Hotel Transylvania" films had a better coffin-handle on the material than this weak effort has. 

Maybe I'm a little too close to the source, but, after watching this, I had a normal urge to go down to Lowe's and get a cart full of torches and pitch-forks.

*

** Short Answer: "Everywhere"

"That's 'It', Folks!"