The Canterville Ghost
Oscar Wilde’s classic short story of 1887 is animated in time for Halloween.
Oscar Wilde's short story The Canterville Ghost is a work that has passed me by. Not only have I failed to read the original, but until now I was ignorant of the fact that at least seven adaptations of it for cinema or for television have preceded this one. Indeed, the role of Sir Simon de Canterville, the ghost of the title, has drawn actors of the calibre of Sir John Gielgud and Sir Patrick Stewart, but it could well be that even many a film buff is unaware that in a film made in 1944 the leading role was taken by Charles Laughton under the direction of none other than Jules Dassin!
For this new treatment, we have an animated film made by Kim Burdon and Robert Chandler featuring a great voice cast. The actor voicing Simon is Stephen Fry who is also on board as one of the film’s executive producers and there is no denying that the piece moves well throughout its 88 minutes. In fact, although the material as presented here is so varied in tone and style that one can only call it a mishmash, it is quite enjoyable. It's fair to assume, I think, that in any hands the tale would present problems as to how best to handle it. It takes place in 1900 in an English rural setting, that of a mansion house which has been purchased by an American family headed by Hiram Otis (David Harewood). He is accompanied by his wife, (Meera Syal), his two mischievous young sons (Jakey Schiff and Bennett Miller) and his daughter, Virginia (Emily Carey). The latter is initially unhappy with the move but the strong-willed girl soon becomes self-evidently the heroine of the tale.
The Canterville Ghost offers a sub-plot in the form of a love story when Henry, the Duke of Cheshire (Freddie Highmore), falls for Virginia who is quickly smitten. But the main relationship here is that between Virginia and the ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville who was once the owner of the property and has since his death been haunting it for some three hundred years. As a ghost he believes that he can frighten people but finds that his efforts largely fail, not least when the Otis family, including Virginia, take Sir Simon very much in their stride. This means that The Canterville Ghost contains a few scary elements but largely plays as comic. Here the latter element includes touches of slapstick and the broad comedy of an inept ghost hunter (Miranda Hart) thrilled to encounter Sir Simon. But there is also humour of a very different kind which involves references that may pass over the heads of young children who should surely be part of the audience here. Thus, having established the fact that Sir Simon had been an actor, that is used as an excuse to have him quoting lines from Shakespeare, echoing a famous line from Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and, with film buffs in mind, remarking during a banqueting scene "Guess who's coming to dinner".
But, if this suggests a context in which you can do anything because anything goes, that is not really so. That's because this is a tale which, however fantastical, grows more serious as it proceeds. Indeed, the love story is disrupted by the kind of family conflict present in Romeo and Juliet. Virginia is won over to helping Sir Simon find freedom by enabling him to escape from having to remain inside Canterville Chase in order to haunt it. But in the process, it emerges that it was an ancestor of Henry's who was to blame for his fate. Consequently, Sir Simon is intensely hostile to Henry and the love match is threatened until he learns to change his attitude – prior to which his anger at Henry's presence at the banquet has led to a wholly dramatic sequence in which his actions result in a fire breaking out.
Furthermore, the climax of the film finds Virginia ready to fulfil a prophecy and thus to free Sir Simon despite the fact that she is likely to die in the process. Together they confront Death (Hugh Laurie playing it straight). Given these elements which ought to draw the viewer in emotionally, a certain level of conviction is required. If the tonal switches put that at risk, so does the fact that making Virginia a heroine in tune with our own times cuts across the sense of this being set over a hundred years ago (Virginia’s look, her dialogue and Emily Carey's vocal delivery all eliminate any convincing feeling for period as does dialogue like that in which a musician playing at the banquet observes that "This is a big gig for us").
But, for all the questionable elements, the piece is presented with enthusiasm and the love story is rather charmingly handled. What we have here certainly seems far away from anything one would naturally associate with Wilde (the inclusion of a minor character named the Rev. Chasuble voiced by Toby Jones is perhaps as much part of the film’s sense of fun as the opening shot which echoes Citizen Kane!). But, even as the tone shifts here, there and everywhere, the film remains diverting.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Voices of Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Freddie Highmore, Emily Carey, David Harewood, Meera Syal, Miranda Hart, Toby Jones, Imelda Staunton, Jake Schiff, Bennett Miller, Elizabeth Sankey.
Dir Kim Burdon and Robert Chandler Pro Robert Chandler, Gina Carter, Martin Metz and Adrian Politowski, Screenplay Giles New and Keiron Self, from the short story by Oscar Wilde, Ed Ronnie Quinlan, Music Eímear Noone and Craig Stuart Garfinkle, Animation Dir Victor Devasakayam.
Align/Melmoth Films/Space Age Films/Sprout Pictures/Toonz Media Group-Signature Entertainment.
89 mins. UK. 2023. UK Rel: 22 September 2023. Cert. PG.
