Written by Sarah Mason, Photo courtesy of SCAD Savannah Film Festival
To many of us, the stories of Roald Dahl are contemporary fairytales. They are consistent staples on the bookshelves of generations of kids who will someday read the same formative, odd, twisted and whimsical stories to their own children at bedtime.
Just like the everlasting gobstopper in ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,’ the legacy of Roald Dahl is infinite and while his stories are looked upon fondly, Dahl himself has developed a villainous characterization. According to rumor, Dahl hated children, which was theorized to be the reason why most of his characters endure some kind of suffering. In a published essay for the New Statesman, he revealed himself to be an anti-Semite, even calling himself “Ronald the Rotten,” which does not alleviate the telephone escalation of rumors on his character.
‘To Olivia,’ directed by John Hay, paints the portrait of Dahl before the rottenness. He is seen as a father, a husband and an undiscovered writer of children’s stories. Dahl, played by Hugh Bonneville, is introduced at a reading for ‘James and the Giant Peach,’ which the children adore, and the adults can’t quite understand. Dahl, however, is uninterested in the seriousness of adulthood and prefers the conversations held with children. Particularly his daughter Olivia, who is to thank for some of the most memorable details in Dahl’s work. When she died of measles, Dahl died a bit too. His wife asked, “Why can’t you just cry like a normal person?” as from this grief, came ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’ A ghostly version of his child self appears to him and reminds him to pick up where he left off and he begins writing for this apparition.
‘To Olivia’ is a deconstruction of grief. Audiences are able to witness how a family, parents and children cope with the loss of a child. The film is successful in the art of breaking hearts. It truly evoked snotty, powerful sobs where t-shirts took the place of tissues. This pain is visceral, particularly in the scenes between Hugh Bonneville and Keeley Hawes who expertly depict the characters’ different reactions to their grief.
While Dahl wants to forget her existence and never speak her name, Patricia wants to remember Olivia. There are scenes where both break down, erupting into fits of physical and emotional distress. Dahl turns to drinking and risks his relationship with his other daughter, Tessa. She’s also mourning Olivia in the way only children can, through imaginary games and fits of deep grief. She frees Olivia’s birds from their cage so they can find her in heaven. The birds later appear in the abandoned home and the sunlight appearing through its decaying roof would have Olivia referring to it as a shivering smile; a bittersweet memory of what her sister would have thought.
‘To Olivia’ opened with an animated sequence that finished with a flourish against a night sky. The title erupts from glowing stardust providing an immediate sense of hopefulness, the kind that only fairytales and stories about chocolate factories can evoke. In the creative flurry of creation, we are reminded that stories can heal, that our imaginative spaces can preserve the memory of the ones we love.
‘To Olivia’ ended with Dahl’s newfound appreciation for Tessa’s imagination and the published success of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.’ We leave the film feeling hopeful. We leave appreciative of those special minds in our lives who inspire us to live with playful curiosity.
