message in the movies By Rev. Bruce Batchelor Glader

             
Charlotte's Web  Rated G
Directed by Gary Winick.  Starring Dakota Fanning, Julia Roberts



Photos © Copyright Paramount Pictures

   E.B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web” is such a masterpiece of literature, wonderfully written and illustrated, that it seems almost a crime to take someone to the movies when you probably ought to be walking them over to the public library.  Nevertheless, this new live-action version is charming and effective in its own way, gently modernizing the 1952 book.  Like many of the popular children’s stories of its time, all of the animals in the barnyard seem to be able to communicate with one another, with humans somehow out of the loop.  Fern Arable (Fanning) is an 11-year old farm girl who stops her father from killing a piglet who is the runt of the litter, promising to raise him on her own.  She names him Wilbur and keeps him at home at first. When he is moved to the barn, the other animals give him an education about his eventual trip to the smokehouse as a holiday ham.  Enter Charlotte (voiced by Roberts), a resourceful and literate spider who comes up with a plan to turn Wilbur into a celebrity and thus spare his life, using the power of simple words weaved into a spider web above his pen.  And so begins a wonderful story of friendship.  The barnyard crew is voiced by Grade-A actors who inhabit their characters (rather than simply turn into a caricature of themselves, which is becoming all-too-common in many recent animated films) and the visual magic is a combination of computer animation, puppetry and animatronics (reminiscent of the “Babe” films).  I’m not sure that the movie will be of great interest to pre-schoolers, but everyone else – including adults who remember the book with fondness from their childhood – should find it delightful and touching.  So much of what passes for family entertainment these days is obsessively manic and over-stuffed with hip pop culture in-jokes and mindless action.  “Charlotte’s Web” is thus, in every way, an exceptional film.  Relax and enjoy its charms and then stop by the library or book store on the way home and give E.B. White his due.

 

Pitchfork Rating: Four halos.  (A beautiful story about friendship, sacrifice and the power of language.)   One pitchfork  ((Restrained flatulence jokes -- if there is such a thing -- and one use of a nasty word that was a real surprise to hear in a G rated movie.)

 

 

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