A Netflix Film Review: “The Twits“

By Ross

“Once upon a time, there were two terrible Twits.” This is the seemingly generic opening of this excitingly non-generic nighttime story told by a firefly to her young firefly son. It’s quaint while also being fascinatingly unique, and almost instantly, I was hooked. “The Twits“, the new animated Netflix feature directed by Todd Demong, Phil Johnston, and Katie Shanahan, was nowhere near my typical watchlist entry. But something about this animated Roald Dahl adaptation caught my eye. It was slightly twisted, a touch retro, yet engagingly tactile. Then I recognized the voice behind the brilliantly vile Mrs. Twit (alongside British comedian Johnny Vegas at the Mister), and I was in. Margo Martindale, unforgettable in August: Osage County, breathes wicked glory into this loathsome figure, and I couldn’t look away.

The premise is delightfully Dahl: two orphans and an escaped family of magical animals take on the foulest couple in the world, to save their town and themselves. The Twits are a seedy pair, pulling horribly gross pranks on one another, locking up a family of adorable and highly intelligent glowing monkeys so they could be harassed upside down (against their will) for free energy, and threatening local children, in song, like a miserable, less musical Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett. They are also determined to open up their chaotic (but cleverly animated) amusement park, with a fetid bouncy pit castle made of soiled mattresses and so many obvious health code violations that it almost makes our skin crawl.

But what unfolds is a searing parable dressed up in whimsical, sometimes musical, absurdity. Phil Johnston and Meg Favreau’s screenplay works like a charm, being both captivatingly fun and a sly mirror for our current cultural moment in the United States government, crafting a town full of grown-ups who fall for obvious lies simply because those lies are exactly what they are dying to hear. The children, naturally, see right through the deceit, and utilizing their skills and empathy, “The Twits“, becomes something magical and engaging. There is something eerily familiar about watching smug, grinning con-artist tyrants declare their intent to destroy everything in their path, only to be rewarded by the very people they don’t care about, and will gladly do them harm.

Yet somehow this film is no lecture. It’s sharp without being cynical, sweet without ever turning saccharine. There is joy and love in the courage of the young heroes, in their refusal to accept what they know is wrong, especially when they come face to face with their own very temporary loss of the one quality that made them a family who could really hear and understand one another. That balance of satire and sincerity, wrapped in gleefully grotesque design, makes “The Twits” a surprising, silly, grossly fun standout. It may very well be the first animated children’s film to point such a direct finger at the madness of Trumpism and the collective derangement that has gripped a nation’s worth of voters for the past ten years.  It’s quite remarkable watching terribly bad people being believed and elevated to positions of power while obviously breaking the law and selling a conman’s narrative about making a gloomy city called Triperot great again. And one you definitely need to stream. It’s rare to find a film that skewers our collective madness with such wit and warmth, making us laugh, wince, and wonder why we ever tolerated The Twits, or their real-world equivalents, in the first place. Let’s hope those real-life Twits all end up having the same smartly crafted fate.