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Roald Dahl is one of those authors that Hollywood like to try and adapt every few years. At least once the adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate factory faded into the childhood nostalgia of those working. Which might just be how we got The Witches.
Like all good novels with a child protagonist, we start off with dead parents. Parental figures apparently being to heroes as gorillas are to dropped children. Our hero goes to live with his grandma who believes in witches. Both novel and film end up with the kid being cared for by grandma who has to holiday someplace in England for her health.
Both have a convention of witches show up, turn the boy into a mouse, and plot to do the same to all children in the world. What the book sorely lacks, is a whiny muppet child admonishing his grandma for having sugar because her diabetes is “acting up”. The movie isn’t without it’s charm which let’s it tie with the book in our opinion.
