Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: A Whimsical World Beset by Strangeness

Movie Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)
Version: HBO free preview

Think of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children as a peculiar alternative world to Harry Potter or X-Men. No one is a wizard but everyone has special powers. Even many of the adults. And main character Jabob is one of them, plucked from the world of unpeculiar people by unfortunate events surrounding a visit to his grandfather's former Cornwall village to discover the secrets unfolded to him over the years in tales told to him by his grandfather when Jacob visits the past through a portal. There he meets the characters of those tales he has seen in old photographs and the very proper Miss Peregrine, whose mission has always been to protect them. It turns out these peculiar children have very powerful enemies, and it's up to Jacob to protect them.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is directed by Tim Burton, so as expected you find a selection of strange, almost grotesque personifications of these peculiar children. One otherwise delightful young girl hides a sharp-toothed maw under long red curls at the nape of her neck. Twins wear gunnysacks over their entire bodies with strange eyes, noses, and mouths stitched where faces should appear, and when facing foes lifting the sacks turns the foes into cement. Monsters on the enemy side have no faces, just round alien heads with mouths full of sharp teeth and tall snake-like bodies. The main bad guy, Barron (played by Samuel L. Jackson) has whites for eyes and jagged teeth like a dinosaur. To keep their evil powers, the bad guys pluck out eye balls and eat them -- pretty grim!

The saving grace for the story are the really more innocent personalities of the peculiar children, who are really more childlike than their powers or some of their personifications might suggest. They are, after all, children. And they are protected by the brilliant, almost Holmsian Miss Peregrine. Every evening at exactly the same time she resets time to the same moment before the Home for Peculiar Children is bombed by German Nazi planes, preserving not only their lives but also their youth and their innocence.

Miss Peregrine is portrayed with exceptional exactness by Eva Green, smokes a pipe and breezes through a line of deductive reasoning that rivals Sherlock Holmes. Asa Butterfield plays Jacob, the youth wonder; Butterfield often plays these parts of the awkward youth who steps in to save the day. Terence Stamp is Abe, Jacob's grandfather, who is ably patient with young Jacob's many questions and, despite many of his more villainous roles of the past, makes a pretty good grandfather. Ella Purnell plays Emma, Jacob's love interest and his lifeline between his own world and the world of peculiars. Along with the other children, it's a fine ensemble cast that wins the film for the viewer.

I'm not a Tim Burton fan, but Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was one of his better efforts, in which he managed to create a whimsical world beset by strangeness. Well imagined and well done.

The Space Between Us: A Romance? Science Fiction? A Love Story? A Tech Story? It's All Four!

Movie Review: The Space Between Us (2017)
Version: Library borrow

The Space Between Us is a romance wrapped in science fiction. A love story wrapped in tech story. But not just any romance or love story nor just any science fiction or tech story. It is multi-dimensional in every aspect.

Gardner Elliot (played by Asa Butterfield) is inadvertently born on Mars on the first Mars colony. His mother dies giving birth to him and the private company running the colony and NASA keep his birth and life a secret, to protect the project. He is raised and educated by the crew, and like them, he is limited in his exposure to the world. But unlike them, he has never seen Earth -- the blue sky, the rivers, lakes, or oceans, the greenery of plant life, the cities or its overwhelming population, and never felt rain nor smelled flowers. And, of course, he's never had contact with his peers -- except one young lady in Colorado, with whom he has secretly been chatting with online: Tulsa (played by Britt Robertson). The decision is made to bring Gardner to Earth to see if he can physically withstand Earth's gravity and ecosystem so that he can live there and have more contact with others. When he arrives, he makes up his mind to find Tulsa and begins the adventure of a lifetime to seek out his father, whom he has never met. Only, Garner has a health problem. And his survival becomes a race against time.

Gary Oldman plays Natheniel Shepherd, the industrialist who has spearheaded the project and made the decision to keep Gardner's life a secret. He takes a particular interest in Gardner's life on Mars and his survival on Earth. When Gardner runs off, he is particularly vexed.

Asa Butterfield is particularly good as Gardner. He is tall and gawky as you might expect some who is born and raised on less massive Mars to be. He plays Gardner as awkward and naive as you would expect the character to be around an unfamiliar Earth. And he shows the raw wonder and emotion at the beauty of a colorful, sense-filled world the Earth is compared to the monochromatic, dry place that Mars is. In a sense, Gardner feels a romance for this amazing place called Earth, as he continually asks people he runs into, "What is your favorite thing about Earth?" He so wants to stay on Earth, and so, in a sense, there is a love story there, too.

Butterfield essentially plays opposite Britt Robertson, who becomes his human love interest. There was a space between them, literally, when he lived on Mars. They unite on Earth as she helps him run away, but his inexperience and his health problem create a new space between them. Still they have this bond that endures and this is the human romance/love story within The Space Between Us.

This film isn't so much about location. It isn't about cinematography. It isn't even about set design or costume design. What makes this film is character development and theme. The writing is great, although there are occasional awkwardnesses in how it is carried out. But if anything, The Space Between Us points out how beautiful our world is and the essential relationships between us.

There's a big red herring in the plot that carries out till the very end. But it's worth enduring for the surprise ending.

The Space Between Us would never be a blockbuster movie. But it would be a good family movie for a variety of tastes. It's worth a feel-good weekend gathering around the TV or a weekday evening.