"Roald Dahl made his career writing children's books that dared to be mean (yes, sometimes in rather unfortunate ways). Across almost 20 novels, the British author spun fantastical tales with unsentimental wit, infusing his work with darkly morbid humor, blithe child endangerment, rotten and antagonistic adults, and a willingness to occasionally laugh at the misfortune of others. And no other work of Dahl's gets more pitch-black than "The Twits," a thin, acidic little text about deeply repugnant people."
"All of this makes "The Twits" a book that is, more or less, completely unadaptable in anything but the loosest sense for film. There have been attempts beforehand - John Cleese of all people was attached to write a screenplay in the early 2000s - but nothing materialized before now, with a "Twits" movie now on Netflix. It's a film that, as director Phil Johnston describes it, treats the original book as something it's "inspired by" rather than directly based upon."
Roald Dahl built a career on children's stories that use unsentimental wit, dark morbid humor, child endangerment, and antagonistic adults. The Twits follows two ugly, spiteful spouses who play cruel pranks and imprison a family of pet monkeys, the Muggle-Wumps. The monkeys escape to Africa while the Twits fall victim to the Dreaded Shrinks and are compressed until they vanish, a fate greeted with a "hooray" by everyone. The Twits' thin, acidic tone and minimal plot have long complicated attempts at screen adaptation. Netflix's new film treats the original as inspiration rather than a direct adaptation, allowing the director to reshape the story.
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