Streaming service does popular children’s series justice
If you have not watched Netflix’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, please stop.
There will be minor spoilers ahead. Stop.
Based off of Lemony Snicket’s (pen name of Dan Handler) best-selling 13-book narrative about the Baudelaire orphans, it serves as an extended allegory for the differences between adult and children, becoming an adult, and the mistrust of children’s word. Stop.
It is a grim story, full of darkness and misery, starring and produced by Neil Patrick Harris. Stop.
While Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events was first published nearly two decades ago, there has been little adaptation or pop cultural reference since its publication run-time from 1999 to 2006, and an ill-fated movie released in 2004.
Violet, 14, Klaus, 12, and Sunny, a mere infant, are orphaned after the sudden death of their parents in a fire that destroyed their home. The three children are sent to live with their “distant relative,” Count Olaf, until Violet turns 18, whereupon she will receive the massive fortune the Baudelaire parents have left their children.
Little do the children know, Count Olaf will stop at nothing (not even murder) to secure the fortune for himself.
The book series uses the flexibility of the written word to explore an almost excruciating blend of grim horror and a bizarre whimsical sense of irony and uses the Baudelaire orphans’ ferocious and sincere love for one another to keep things from getting too dark.
The television series, without the ability to offer ironic takes on events (apart from monologues by narrator Patrick Warburton) dives right into the Burton-esque detective noir aspects of the stories; mysteries, disappearances, and iconography quickly muddle the plot.
What the television show honours from the books (which the film-adaptation clumsily avoided), apart from strong fealty to the text, is the depth of abuse suffered by the orphans at the hands of nearly every adult with whom they interact, trust, or confide in.
Make no mistake: A Series of Unfortunate Events is first and foremost a story of children reaching out to the adults they are supposed to be able to trust, only to have those same adults dismiss their allegations based on the fact that they are not in the secret society: adulthood. Time and time again, the adult world is proven to be frightening, stiff, and apathetic to the plights of three young children. It would be very difficult to watch, were it not for the tenacity of the children, and now, the brilliance of the young actors.
The acting and the scenery in Netflix’s series are superb. The eldest Baudelaires, played by Malina Weissman and Louis Hynes, are endearing, reserved, and mirror each other’s subtle emotions: profound grief, small respites of contentment in Justice Strauss’s library, and adoration for one another and their infant sister. Baby Sunny, portrayed by Presley Smith, is an unbelievably adorable baby. Neil Patrick Harris relies on his broadway training to nail Count Olaf’s tendency to hubris and campiness, all while injecting his theatrics with a real sense of danger and darkness.
Bo Welch, set designer for the Netflix show, has done an incredible job of bringing often-times dreary scenes to life with movement and intrigue. You can tell that Welch has studied Modern and brutalist architecture, building a strange and soaring city in which the Baudelaire orphans live. To relieve tension and provide some colour, Welch contrasts the drab and dark city with Justice Strauss’s bright San Francisco-style Victorian home.
Despite the series’ darkness, we are able to glean several insights from the sad story of the Baudelaire orphans. Love your family, rise against adversity, and ultimately, if a child tells you something is wrong, believe them. You might be saving them from their own Olaf.
Photo courtesy of Netflix.