A Series of Unfortunate Events Trusted its Kids to Weather the Storm
A Series of Unfortunate Events, released 20 years ago this week, opens with a warning from its narrator: “The movie you are about to see is extremely unpleasant.” It’s a bold opening for a children’s film, and it captures the tone of the film perfectly. The film has all the components of a classic children’s story—there are peculiar characters, a mystery at the heart of the narrative, and a lighthearted tone despite the heavy subject matter. But it is the way that the film embraces gothic elements and makes them approachable for a young audience that marks it as wholly unique in a crop of otherwise mundane early 2000s Nickelodeon movies. Masquerading as a simple children’s fantasy film, A Series of Unfortunate Events celebrates the gothic whimsy of author Daniel Handler’s novels by swapping flights of fancy usually found in children’s films for the gruesome reality of the real world rendered through a fantastical lens.
As a film produced under the Nickelodeon Movies’ banner, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) was unique in its approach to darker subject matter for a relatively young audience. Planned sequels never came to fruition despite the film holding the title of the highest-grossing Nickelodeon Movies film for roughly six years, marking one of the greatest losses to mid-2000s children’s cinema. Director Brad Silberling would later state that he felt a kinship to the novels that the film is based on due to their exploration of grief and the aftermath of loss—a feeling that is translated on screen, where an eccentric film about evil Counts and flesh-eating leeches transforms into a story about the triumph of family in the face of disaster.
The film opens with the death of the Baudelaire children’s parents, a macabre way to start a film aimed at a predominantly young audience. Orphaned and left to fend for themselves are 14-year-old Violet (Emily Browning), her 12-year-old brother Klaus (Liam Aiken), and their 2-year-old baby sister Sunny (Kara and Shelby Hoffman). Together they must escape the clutches of the wicked Count Olaf (an over-the-top Jim Carrey), who will stop at nothing to secure the Baudelaire family fortune. The Baudelaires are forced to navigate a cruel and detached world full of adults who do not respect the voices of children, capturing the distinctive feeling of what it means to move through the world as a child.
At no point in the film does the story coddle the feelings of its intended audience. Silberling follows the lead of author Daniel Handler and refuses to belittle his young audience’s intelligence, presenting them with a story that is as harsh and unforgiving as the world they will encounter as adults. After suffering the unimaginable pain of losing both of their parents—surely the biggest fear in any child’s life—the Baudelaires must navigate encounters with adults who refuse to believe a word they say. Both the family banker, Mr. Poe (Timothy Spall), and the police constable dismiss any suggestion of Count Olaf’s cruel nature, and the close family friends that are supposed to be caring for the Baudelaires fail to heed the children’s warnings about their impending danger. Even the meek Aunt Josephine (played by Meryl Streep in a hilarious supporting role) is quick to ignore the children’s cries of danger in order to save herself (though she does die at the hands of those aforementioned flesh-eating leeches as a result in what is a rather swift turn of justice). At every step of the way, the Baudelaires are brushed off as nothing more than infants with overactive imaginations.
Rarely has a film so perfectly captured both the feeling of being a child, and being aware of your status as a child. When Klaus suggests going to the authorities with their concerns, Violet reprimands him and insists that “they won’t listen. They never listen.” It is a moment of desperate honesty that captures the frustration of being young and constantly dismissed by the supposedly rational adults in your life. Time and time again, the Baudelaires are left to fend for themselves at the incompetence of the adults around them. When the Count facetiously states that “no one ever listens to children,” it reaffirms the children’s belief that they cannot rely on adults to save them. Like other child protagonists before them, the kids of A Series of Unfortunate Events must take matters into their own hands.
As they battle to escape every trap set by Count Olaf, each more perilous than the last, the film showcases the strength of these characters in the face of adversity. When they’re left stranded on train tracks, seconds away from being hit by an oncoming train, it is Klaus’ knowledge of railway machinery and Violet’s off-the-cuff inventions that save them. When they’re trapped in Aunt Josephine’s collapsing home perched precariously on the edge of a cliff, it is Violet’s fast thinking that saves them. In each instance, the film emphasizes how, despite being abandoned by the adults in their lives, the Baudelaire children are able to survive through sheer determination and an unwavering faith in each other’s strengths.
A Series of Unfortunate Events is a film that promises to be unpleasant, and for the most part, it is. The story is peppered with cruelty and disregard at the hands of people who should be guardians—the biggest kind of betrayal for any child. There are deadly creatures and bizarre, terrifying settings that are made all the more threatening by inspired set design and a dedication to using as few visual effects as possible—Count Olaf’s house is colored in oppressive shades of green and grey, Aunt Josephine’s home in blues and blacks. As one deadly setting is swapped out for the next, the film embraces the theatricality of its source material and creates a visual spectacle befitting of a wondrous children’s story. But beneath the theatrical veneer is a story about finding refuge among loved ones in the face of insurmountable grief.
At the start of the film, in a quiet moment shared between the recently orphaned Baudelaire children, Klaus turns to Violet and asks, “Do you think anything will ever feel like home again?” By the end of the film, we are shown how the Baudelaires are able to build sanctuary amongst each other despite the tragedy of their lives. Home, according to this film, is not a single point on a map dictated by adults who spare you little thought, but rather something that is built with loved ones in the wake of devastation. The film ends with a final image of the children sound asleep in the back of a car as they are driven down a pleasant road to their next destination. There is no promise about what this destination may hold, but the implication is that they’ll be okay as long as they have each other.
Nadira Begum is a freelance film critic and culture writer based in the UK. To see her talk endlessly about film, TV, and her love of vampires, you can follow her on Twitter (@nadirawrites) or Instagram (@iamnadirabegum).