Aaron Tracy

I think Tarantino's movie doesn't quite hold together because he's not interested in the thing that makes Dahl's story so great.

Dahl's version is lean, focused, and builds tension through simplicity.

Its power comes from the escalating stakes and the psychological cat and mouse game.

Tarantino, maybe because he was so young and it was only his third movie, gets bogged down in his own indulgences.

I really do love Tarantino.

I think he may be the most talented director working today.

But in this case, it feels like he turned Dahl's story into a verbose, self-referential wannabe thriller lacking suspense.

So, since you're going to be stuck remembering this for the rest of your life, you have to decide what that memory will be.

Also, Tarantino's choice to change the setting and make it about celebrities and Hollywood culture dilutes the universal human drama that makes Dahl's original so effective.

Essentially, Tarantino tried to make it a Tarantino film instead of serving the story, which, as we've talked about, rarely works with Dahl.

Wes Anderson and Alfred Hitchcock succeed because they manage to put their egos aside and blend their distinctive styles with Dahl's.

Manuel made a similar point when I asked him if there's anything he thinks the good adaptations got right and the bad ones got wrong.

I think the best ones or the ones that have stood the test of time understand how language was so key to his success.

I think there's a world in which adaptations that try to update him or modernize him or sand down the weird, quirky Britishisms that are so delectable in his work tend to fail because I think that's where the magic lies.

And the ones that do it best are the ones that key into that

of sensibility i also think that especially when it comes to the children's books any of those films that don't just understand his work but also his collaboration with quentin blake and those kinds of illustrations and the kind of tenor and tone of those you know i'm thinking of something like james the giant peach it visually it's sort of so in the world of doll and blake

that I think it hits the right spot.

But when you have filmmakers that are instead trying to use him just as a jumping off point and sometimes lose probably what made him so special on the page.

In our final episode, we'll talk more about exactly what made Dahl so special on the page, including my conversation with an expert on the books who actually knew Dahl in life and can speak firsthand about the kind of impression he made.

We'll also talk about Dahl's fascinating writing process, which I'm pretty obsessed with.