Grim fairy tale, from the pen of Roald Dahl, about a moppet blessed with a love of reading (particularly the works of "Darles Chickens"), a prodigious intellect, telekinetic powers, while cursed with sleazoid parents and a sadistic school principal ("Use the rod, beat the child. That's my motto"). For director and co-star Danny DeVito, fantasy rids the dictionary of bothersome concepts like overstatement, excessiveness. Not all parents, incidentally, will be completely comfortable with the suggestion that children are justified in "punishing" their misbehaving elders: e.g., by switching the contents of bottles in Mom and Dad's medicine cabinet. Mara Wilson, Embeth Davidtz, Pam Ferris, Rhea Perlman, Paul Reubens. (1996) — Duncan Shepherd
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