Spiderwick Chronicles (3.5 out of 4 stars)

I agree with Ebert's rating of the 2008 children's movie, Spiderwick Chronicles. We watched it last night for "summer family movie night" - a new ritual begun by my wife involving myself, her, my 6year old son, and 2 1/2 year old daughter. Each week, we get to pick the movie for the week, and this week it was my turn. I went to Blockbuster, unsure of what to rent, and saw a commercial for SC. Then I found the movie on the rack, and saw Ebert's writings quoted on the cover (always a good sign - maybe the best sign, depending on what they chose to reproduce). It said something like, "Great Entertaining Movie for the Whole Family." So I rented it, sight unseen.

For the most part, the family agreed. The only thing I wish I would've paid closer attention to was the PG rating on the back that specified the movie had some scary scenes involving CG monsters. Turns out, those made all the difference to both the substance of the story and the scariness of the movie, and because of it my kids both loved the movie and were scared to death by the many scenes involving ogres and goblins. But as my son told me this morning, "I didn't have any nightmares last night!" it looks like we dodged the bullet. So, I probably would say that if you have kids who are 6 or younger, maybe forego this movie with them, but it is a good one.

The movie is interestingly about a few different things. On the one hand, it's a fantastical movie about a family of four - a recent divorcee and her three adolescent children aged roughly 9 (boy twins) and 13 (older sister) - who leave New York City because, we later learn, the father has left the mother for another woman. They don't have anywhere to live, and because NYC is so expensive, they go to live in a rural area probably still in New York (though I'm just guessing) where the mother has inherited a dilapidated and thoroughly spooky house from her aging great-aunt Lucy. Lucy has been committed to a sanitarium because they found cuts on her arms that looked like some kind of really exotic suicide attempt (you have to see it to see what I mean). She says, though, that it was caused by the goblins, and when you say goblins do something, but they say it looks like suicide - well, that's enough to get you put in the "nuthouse," as one of the boys calls it. Aunt Lucy has lived a hard life, because she saw her father be swept away by fairies, and lived the remainder of her life guarding an important book, which her father wrote, which if it were to fall in the hands of the ogre, would almost certainly result in the deaths of everyone in the world, including humans. Of course, now that she is in the asylum, the youngest boy finds the book, opens it, reads it, and basically sets into motion a series of events that require he and his siblings to get up to speed on the ins and outs of the fantasy world so that they can defeat the ogre before he gets the book and destroys the world.

That's one level of the movie. But there's another level, too. And that's the stories about missing fathers. There are two, maybe three, different ways in which the movie centers the fantasy on the idea of a missing father. First there is Aunt Lucy whose father was literally taken from her by fairies when she was only 6 years old. Second, there is the responsibility that the father has for all of this, because he was so obsessed with the scientific work of cataloguing all the secrets of this fantasy land into a kind of "Field Guide" that he lost sight of the more important things to him, like his wife and daughter. For instance, he had every chance to destroy the book, and in so doing basically eliminate the ogre threat, but his life's work was more important than anyone's safety, so he chose to try and create spells that would just protect the house - by creating a circle around it that couldn't be passed by the goblins, trolls and ogres lurking in the forest. And finally, there is the father who has cheated on his wife and left his family. All of these stories highlight fathers who are selfish about themselves which cause them to abandon their children and wives, in so many different ways, for the sake of some pet object of theirs - be it their work or their lovers. It was tragic to watch and see how the children adapted, and the movie takes on a familiar storyline of the fantasy world basically operating as a device to help the children escape from the tragedy of their situation.

But I'd be lying if this second level to the movie didn't seem like an indictment to me, personally. Being an economist, and an obsessive almost addictive person at that, I wondered if I was like the fathers in the movie - selfish, lost in thought, obsessed with my own work to the exclusion of my family's needs. It was a reflective movie for the adults, particularly fathers and husbands, and a fantastical film for the whole family, as Ebert said. I encourage you to see it, but know that it's also challenging in small, but nonetheless important, ways.