Netflix hasn’t had much luck lately. Hundreds of unsubscribes, questionable original content, Henry Cavill’s departure from The Witcher are just some of the problems. Even the expected success of Stranger Things season 4 didn’t save the situation. At the end of November, a children’s fairy tale was quietly released about a gloomy girl from the famous Addams family – “Wednesday”, which tears the entire population of the planet to shreds. Cosplays, cuts of favorite moments, attempts to copy the same dance and tons of memes flow like a river from every iron. But what is the reason for such a resounding success? Well, we have an answer for that.
New is well forgotten old
It seems that Netflix was not at all ready for what happened. Before the premiere, few people knew about the series. Only a few short news about the participation of Tim Burton (Tim Burton) slightly cheered rare fans. And not in vain, because the master knows how to turn even the most banal story into something exciting. What can we say about the Addams family, which seems to have been invented for Burton from the very beginning.
Tim BurtonArtistic hypertrophied Gothic, beautiful characters and an unknown world beyond the threshold of the family home opened up incredible space for creativity. Many do not know that the feature films The Addams Family (1991) and The Addams Family Values (1993) are not directed by the director of Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands (Edward Scissorhands).
The family in 1991In 2022, the annoying mistake will be permanently corrected. Although Burton directed only four of the eight episodes, he took an active part in working out the plot and all the details, which is why Wednesday can still be safely called the new creation of the eminent director.
and in 2022From the first minutes, the recognizable style immediately catches the eye. A gloomy girl in a deliberately old-fashioned dress walks through the hall of a modern school. She is going to take revenge on her brother’s perpetrators, but not with magic or superpower, but in a very mundane and even cruel way. Accompanied by Edith Piaf, vicious piranhas, unleashed by the main character in the pool, attack the hapless bullies. At that moment you realize that sadism has never been shown so spectacularly and “tastefully” on Netflix.
Together with screenwriters, Burton creates his own universe, which can be developed in every possible way. Here is an analogue of Hogwarts for strange children with unusual abilities – Nevermore. The school turned out to be not as large-scale as JK Rowling’s, but it has no less secrets in itself.
Never againAnd here is a beautiful monster with an appearance that causes a smile and disgust at the same time. And this is just one type of local bestiary. According to the plot, the heroes find the diary of the founder of the Nevermore school with a wide variety of creatures – enough for another five seasons. What can we say about the characters, each of which can be easily removed as a separate spin-off.
At the same time, the master does not hesitate to mix fiction with things that are absolutely natural in everyday life – coffee houses, sessions with a psychologist and video calls. Such a cocktail could look like an unnatural mess of disparate images and ideas – hello Riverdale! – but not with Burton. Combining the familiar with the fantastic makes what is happening livelier.
If before the Addams Family was something fleeting – few young viewers even watched modern cartoons, then after “Wednesday” you want to plunge into the universe. The series does the main thing – after watching it leaves the desire to continue. This is rare on Netflix.
The famous finger clippings in the show are just a small reference.Despite the teenage theme, the plot did not disappoint. For once, we are not witnessing gender definition and the search for someone’s identity, but a solid detective story. External simplicity leaves room for intrigue, so you don’t pay attention to petty styles in the story. This ties Wednesday to the first Harry Potter movies and sets it apart from another Netflix project, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. There, the authors became so caught up in the modern agenda that only fragments of the original story remained.
In “Wednesday”, the makers managed to find a balance between a series of plot twists and downright girlish themes such as a love triangle or a fight with a girlfriend. All this is of course there, but somewhere in the background, so it doesn’t irritate. In addition, the heroine herself does not really want to be distracted from the investigation and hardly cares about socialization issues or other fashionable problems of teenagers. Wednesday doesn’t have to champion feminism, get along with her parents, or find her place in life – she does it so well.
Well, how can you not fall in love with them?It is clear that the niche of magical fantasy after the films about the boy who survived, no one has ever occupied. “Fantastic Beasts” failed miserably, but audience interest didn’t fade. “Wednesday” famously broke into trends, proving to others and the streaming giant itself that well-developed characters and a good script are still better than many blacks in all leading roles.
Moreover, the series even dares to mock it. For example, one of the most annoying characters is black. He already receives several times from the heroine. Particularly sensitive viewers, because of such liberties, have already tried to cancel the project, but soon drowned in the rave reviews of the majority.
Which Wednesday is better?
No story can exist without characters. Almost half of Wednesday’s success is heroes. Jenna Ortega has become a top star whose career and popularity have skyrocketed in just a few weeks. Her Wednesday took the best of previous interpretations, rethought and modernized. The work turned out to be so successful that now it is almost impossible to imagine another actress in the image.
It seems everyone already knows that Ortega didn’t blink in the frame. A small feature, accidentally born during filming, added originality to the character’s facial expression. The cold and detached image required stamina and considerable acting skills from Jenna. At the same time, Little Addams changes a lot internally for eight episodes. To convey this with only fleeting glances and lip movements is a “task with an asterisk”.
The main secret of Wednesday’s popularity lies in its duality. A negative character, completely fixated on himself, would hardly have found world love. The creators understood this, so they made the heroine experience situations that would reveal her from completely new sides. Despite all the rigidity and indifference, Wednesday appreciates the truth and protects loved ones. Who doesn’t love noble anti-heroes these days?
The rest of the cast was no worse. Catherine Zeta-Jones is the enchanting Morticia, Gwendoline Christie is a femininity as the mysterious headmistress, and Emma Myers is one of the show’s highlights as the lovable werewolf neighbor. Of course, there are many more actors, and everyone has a little bit of time to open up and be remembered.
By the way, the director’s name is LarisaThere was even a place last Wednesday – Christina Ricci (Christina Ricci), who played a girl in feature films. It’s nice that they didn’t get away with a fleeting cameo. Ricci has one of the leading roles.
Christina RickiNow girls all over the world are trying to copy the image of little Addams, and rightly so. A real Hollywood legend worked on the costumes in the series – Colleen Atwood, who worked with Burton on almost all of his paintings. But the main thing that sank into the soul of the audience was Wednesday’s dance at the ball. It even got to the point where Netflix even launched an endless live broadcast featuring a dancing girl. Interestingly, Jenna Ortega staged all the moves herself just a few days before filming, and was even sick with Covid. A talented person is talented in everything.
The series is confidently breaking records for views, and after the New Year holidays, it will most likely remove Stranger Things and The Squid Game (Ojingeo geim) from the throne. Such success does not happen in a vacuum. Before us lies one of the best results of the work of many talented people whose ideas have not passed through the meat grinder of tolerance. We can only hope that Tim Burton joins the second season, which of course it will.
The people of the Earth express their love in countless memes:
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“Wednesday” is a great series that I would like to recommend to everyone. Someone might say that the story is too childish and older viewers will get bored. But this is a delusion. “Harry Potter” (Harry Potter), “Chronicles of Narnia» (The Chronicles of Narnia) and other leading fantasy projects are loved by the audience, despite all the naivety, and with Tim Burton’s new hit the same way. Share in the comments if you’ve tried to repeat the dance and run to watch if you haven’t already.
Have you seen Wednesday?
Source: VG Times