The Addams Family Movie Review : Same theme, slightly different approach

REVIEW: This latest animated instalment of Charles Addams’ cartoon series based on a spooky, kooky family traces back to the time when their tryst with the other world had forced them into living in an abandoned asylum (that they later convert into a castle), up a hill, in a remote town named ‘Assimilation’ near New Jersey. Upon arrival, Gomez Addams announces that he has finally found a place he can now call ‘home’, but a decade later, a beehive-maned, high-heels wearing interior designer Margeaux (Alison Janney) wants to renovate their home and paint it pink and purple. The Addams, of course, protest and refuse to have it the lady’s way, but all that is futile now, as confetti and balloons have already gate-crashed their grey world and Addams offsprings — Wednesday (Chloe Grace Moretz) and Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard) — are lured by the smell of freedom and rebellion.

'The Addams Family', being an animated series, perhaps, targeting the younger section of the society, launches its narrative with the sole, yet, subtle message that being different raises eyebrows the world over, but hey, who's complaining! And then, very effortlessly, shifts its focus on the pressures of peerhood (when a very young and clearly disinterested Pugsley is forced to participate in a sword-fighting competition to prove his worth as an Addams), finally making room for revolt that comes in the form of a headstrong, kohl-rimmed, and deathly-stared teenager, Wednesday.

Other than the usual animation favourite themes of family-over-the-rest-of-the-world and oddballs struggling to blend into the society, directors Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon render an interesting juxtaposition to the story — submission with utter rebellion.

If Chloe Grace Moretz gives Wednesday the perfect voice for a spooky yet strong-willed teenager looking to explore the endless possibilities that the external world has to offer, Finn Wolfhard's Pugsley is the character that makes one's constant struggle to please and appease their folks believable. While Pugsley is from the land of conformists and resonates with those who succumb to peer pressure, on the other hand, Wednesday, is both calm and conniving.

The film's parallel characters like Wednesday's friend Parker keep the story going, knowing fully well that the movie has nothing new to offer that hasn't been touched upon in this genre yet. The animation part of it, too, is nothing out of the box and is not visually exciting.

Despite the predictabilty of the plot and average special effects, 'The Addams Family' works to a reasonable extent mainly because of its characters and the layered themes. And the underlying subplot that there is no right or wrong way to live your life, regardless of how the world perceives you, is oh-so-relatable.

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