Months of Meryl: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

 

#31 —Aunt Josephine, an agoraphobic, grammar-obsessed, hermetic eccentric.

MATTHEW:  Who says Meryl Streep doesn’t make movies for kids? In 2004, Streep lent her talents to Brad Silberling’s film adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket’s (née Daniel Handler) acclaimed literary series that, over the course of 13 novels, chronicled the many misfortunes and menacing adventures of an orphaned trio of children...

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A Series of Unfortunate Casting Decisions

Laurence here with some more casting news from the television world. When news broke in 2014 that Netflix would be adapting Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events books into a series, it was exciting. The 2004 film adaptation never really struck a chord, nor was it successful enough to turn into the Harry Potter-esque franchise Nickelodeon wanted it to be. It was received relatively well, but it has become something of a pop culture footnote.

Television is a pretty natural place for an adaptation of a 13-book series, however, and Netflix's love of hurling absurd amounts of money at every algorithmically pleasing premise bade well for a new adaptation.

After a long time spent in 'talks', yesterday it was finally confirmed that the actor cast to play Count Olaf in the series is...Neil Patrick Harris? Now, NPH has been doing solid work in proving his range post-HIMYM. He was enjoyably creepy in Gone Girl, and his stint in Hedwig on Broadway showed he could be, well, Hedwig. But whatever you think about Jim Carrey's performance as Olaf, he was nothing if not indelible.

But NPH as Count Olaf seems, well, a stretch. There's no denying that he has comic chops. But Olaf is an evil, strange, reptilian character, such that casting NPH makes the whole thing feel sanitised and kid-friendly. Add in the fact that their casting of Violet (Malina Weissman) and Klaus (Louis Hynes) seems to be both skewing younger than the film and strangely insistent on replicating the look of the film's stars, Emily Browning and Liam Aiken.

One bright spot, at least, is the casting of Patrick Warburton as Lemony Snicket, who was played by Jude Law in the film. But despite NPH's Halloween costume bona fides, Netflix could have been more creative. Imagine Kathy Najimy as a genderbent Countess Olaf. Imagine.

Perhaps the most curious aspect is that the series is set to be directed, at least at first, by Barry Sonnenfeld of Addams Family Values fame, who was originally set to direct the film. At the time, he hired Daniel Handler (the writer behind the Snicket pen name) to adapt the books as a musical. Given that they have also cast two-time Tony nominee K. Todd Freeman, it will be interesting to find out if that's what we're going to get. But is that what the books deserve?