The Addams Family

The characters who first appeared in the pages of The New Yorker, in 1938, wouldn’t be christened “The Addams Family” until the 1964 TV series.  Charles Addams’ comic strip also spawned wildly successful movies in the 1990s.  Given the passage of time, these are probably how most people know these individuals today.  Incidentally, there was a Broadway show back in 2010 as well.  The execution of this current animated film is actually the closest rendering to the cartoonist’s original creation.  It acts as a nice introduction for kids to the ghoulish clan.

Our tale begins in the past with the marriage of Gomez and Morticia voiced by Oscar Isaac Charlize Theron.  Flash forward to the present where they move to New Jersey, in a particularly amusing gag.  There are a few plot threads.  An oppressive neighborhood busybody and reality TV host named Margeaux Needler (Allison Janney) threatens to make the Addams’ life miserable.  More on her later.  Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard) prepares for a coming of age ritual involving swordplay.  Finally, their daughter, Wednesday (Chloë Grace Moretz) is curious about life outside her home and so she enrolls herself in junior high school.  There she befriends a girl named Parker (Elsie Fisher), who happens to be Margaux’s daughter.

The Addams Family isn’t an expensive effort and picky animation fans raised on Pixar and Disney may balk at the modest appearance of the production.  This cost a mere $24 million to make.  Compare that to Toy Story 4 which had a budget of $200 million.  However, this uncluttered simplicity is part of its charm.  Directors Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan brought us the raunchy R rated Sausage Party back in 2016.  This bears absolutely no resemblance to that endeavor.  Depending on your point of view that could either be a good thing or a bad thing.  (Personally, I was pleased.)

First the bad news: The Addams Family won’t win any awards.  As a stroy it’s kind of a scattershot affair that keeps hammering the same lesson– it’s OK to be different.  Promoting the virtues of uniformity is Home And Garden (HAG) TV maven Margeaux.  She’s building a planned community known as Assimilation near the Addams’ mansion.  She has this ridiculously large bouffant of blonde hair.  It looks like a gigantic plastic headpiece.  She’s the villain obviously and she’s hilarious.  The moral is heavy-handed but its heart is in the right place.

That’s the good news: As a piece of animated entertainment, it’s a pleasant diversion that stays true to the spirit of Charles Addams’ cartoon strip.  The artwork and his quirky sense of humor are intact.  These folks remain the appealingly oddball personalities that we know and love.  They’re all here: Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll) Grandmama (Bette Midler), Wednesday, Pugsley, their butler Lurch (Conrad Vernon), Cousin Itt (Snoop Dogg) and Thing, a disembodied hand.  Their eccentricities are on full display and they provide laughs aplenty for children and adults alike.  Monochromatic Wednesday Addams and her school chum Parker (Elsie Fisher) are talking about which Instagram filter to use for their photo and Wednesday dismisses making a choice. “I still appear black and white in all of them.”  It’s these little throwaway comments that made me chuckle.  The Addams Family is a spirited bit of fluff with inspired atmospheric touches.

10-10-19