That balance, correct or otherwise, isn’t likely to diminish the cross-family appeal of this year’s London Film Festival opener when it reaches audiences in December - via Sony in the U.K., and Netflix elsewhere. What you remember from it, however, is each scene in which elder malevolence deliciously spoils the party. The film, on balance, is cheery, sherbet-colored stuff, bursting with goodwill for all good people. 12-year-old Alisha Weir’s agreeably precocious title character and a large, eager ensemble of self-proclaimed “revolting children” fill the screen in one busy number after another, as they vocally stand up for kids’ right to be kids in the face of authoritarian adult opposition - only for Emma Thompson’s towering, truck-jawed antagonist to rather greedily pull focus from them with each rancorous line reading. And yet, even as its script dictates otherwise, grownups still get the upper hand in director Matthew Warchus’ bouncy screen transfer of his hit stage musical.
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