From Page to Screen
Mark Waters’s The Spiderwick Chronicles

by Rachel L. Smith

A warning to anyone planning to see Mark Waters’s film adaptation of The Spiderwick Chronicles: there’s lots of screaming and screeching. If you can stand the noise, the movie does have its good points. Fans of the five Spiderwick books will be happy that little has been changed in the film version, presumably because authors Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black served as executive producers. The basic premise is the same: the Grace family (mom Helen, twin brothers Jared and Simon, and sister Mallory) moves into an old, creepy house currently owned by their hospitalized great-aunt Lucinda. Shortly thereafter, Jared discovers his great-great-uncle Arthur Spiderwick’s field guide to faeries and other magical beings. The three kids are soon drawn into dangerous adventures when evil creatures, particularly the ogre Mulgarath, attempt to hunt down the field guide to use its secrets to destroy the magical world and the siblings.

Like the books, the movie jumps right into the conflict. But where the series’ volumes can be choppy and tend to begin and end abruptly, the movie takes elements from all five and seamlessly moves from one plot point to the next. The movie features fewer characters and subplots (there are no dwarves, elves, phookas, or trolls, for example), and its ninety-seven minutes pass quickly, propelled by lots of action and special effects. These effects are satisfying and in some cases quite stunning, as when the three children fly on the back of a griffin while looking for Arthur Spiderwick and viewers are treated to an incredible ride through the mountains and clouds, ending in a green glade filled with dandelion-fuzz-like sylphs. The Spiderwick house, where most of the scenes take place, looks appropriately old and Victorian. The goblins (the main bad guys in the film) look fearsome, and an explosion of goblin-killing tomato sauce will have kids cheering. As shape-shifting Mulgarath, the movie’s central villain, Nick Nolte achieves impressive transformations, most notably (and disturbingly) when he changes from the form of the kids’ dad to that of a monster, though this did scare a few younger members of one theater audience.

The best, most real moments in the movie are not the fantasy elements or the special effects; they are when we witness the pain of the breakup of a family. With many of the series’s adventure subplots taken out of the equation, the movie has a little more room to concentrate on the emotional life of the characters. In one instance, when Mallory explains to Jared that their father is seeing another woman, the characters’ intense feelings are obvious. Freddie Highmore stands out, playing both angry, sullen Jared and his twin brother, smart, animal-loving Simon. Sarah Bolger is convincingly bratty as older sister Mallory, and Mary-Louise Parker is believable as Helen, the frazzled, newly single mom. The magical creatures are less successful: Hogsqueal (voiced by Seth Rogan) is much more amiable and less engaging than the cranky, insult-firing hobgoblin of the books. And though Thimbletack, voiced by Martin Short, changes into an angry boggart on occasion, he is easily placated with honey and isn’t as vengeful as he is in print. Rogan and Short try their best, but their funny lines fall flat. The characters also aren’t helped by some stilted dialogue and lots of repetition: viewers might roll their eyes after hearing for the third or fourth time some variation of “If Mulgarath learns the secrets in that book he is going to kill us all!” An unnecessary plot change at the very end might disappoint fans of the books.

The Spiderwick books are entertaining, creative diversions, for sure, but have less of a cult-status than do the Harry Potter books or Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy and lack the zealous fan base ready to pounce on any discrepancies. The film will probably benefit from this lower profile; despite its shortcomings, the movie accomplishes the goal of pleasing fans and satisfying newcomers. But consider bringing earplugs.

Rachel L. Smith is editorial assistant of The Horn Book Guide.

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