Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Written by Milt Banta, et al.
Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, & Wilfred Jackson

The Dormouse, AKA my first stage role.

I’m more attached to Alice in Wonderland than I’d like to be. As long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a performer, and when I was a mere six years old, I went to an audition for a local community theater in Temecula (I sang “Do-Re-Mi”, if I recall correctly). I was cast in my very first stage production, called The Trial of Alice in Wonderland, which essentially took the last 10 minutes of the animated film, spread it over one act, and moved all the songs to there. I played the Dormouse (you know, the sleepy little mouse that lives in a teapot at the Tea Party scene).

So, I had watched the film a lot around that time, and actually, I pulled it up again on Netflix about 4 years ago. The movie will always be special to me, because of the memories I have attached to it. Which, is a bummer, because there’s a lot of issues here.

I just…what’s happening here, Alice?

My biggest issue with the film is not about how little sense it makes (honestly, that’s part of the point of it). It’s about how unlikeable the character of Alice is. She spends the entire film not following her own advice (even singing a song about how she gives herself very good advice, but doesn’t follow it. Except, we never once see her give herself any good advice), so she just spends the entirety of the film being an absolute train wreck, to herself and anyone she manages to come into contact with.

Subtlety also isn’t her strong suit, or the film’s, for that matter. From what I understand, there were a lot of issues with getting this film made, mostly stemming from a story perspective, and I’m not entirely sold that they got it figured out. In Alice’s first song, “In a World of my Own” (a pretty standard “I Want” song), she abandons subtlety altogether and spells out exactly the kind of place Wonderland would/should be. It’s as if the film doesn’t trust its audience to be able to fill in its gaps. The primary target is children, they have nothing BUT imagination.

Alice is portraying how I feel after having to watch this film.

The film IS imaginative, of course. There are hints of brilliance peppered throughout. Most of the time, however, it’s tough to see it, because there is literally so much happening on screen that it becomes exhausting. Yet, the film also takes some time to slow down, but when it does, it stalls. It’s as if the film is paced to match the crazy attitude shifts of the main character. When the film ended, I felt as if I had just completed a marathon, because the film never gives the audience a chance to get a good grip before hurlting them along its path.

It’s a shame, because the art direction of the film is really pretty ingenious, and it’s one of the qualities I really like about the film. At a mere 75 minute runtime, there was a lot of opportunity to slow down and allow the audience to become immersed, but alas, the audience, like Alice, only gets a breakneck tour before coming back up for air.

FINAL GRADE: C+