''Alice through the Looking Glass'' is a 1998 British
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...
television film
A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...
, based on
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...
's 1871 book ''
Through the Looking-Glass
''Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There'' (also known as ''Alice Through the Looking-Glass'' or simply ''Through the Looking-Glass'') is a novel published on 27 December 1871 (though indicated as 1872) by Lewis Carroll and the ...
'', and starring
Kate Beckinsale
Kathrin Romany Beckinsale (born 26 July 1973) is an English actress and model. After some minor television roles, her film debut was ''Much Ado About Nothing'' (1993) while a student at the University of Oxford. She appeared in British costume ...
.
The film was released on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
in 2005.
Plot
The film opens with a mother (
Kate Beckinsale
Kathrin Romany Beckinsale (born 26 July 1973) is an English actress and model. After some minor television roles, her film debut was ''Much Ado About Nothing'' (1993) while a student at the University of Oxford. She appeared in British costume ...
) reading ''Through the Looking Glass'' to her daughter Alice (Charlotte Curley). The mother then finds herself travelling through the bedroom mirror into Looking-Glass Land and becoming Alice, but remains an adult.
Alice finds a book containing "
Jabberwocky
"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel ''Through the Looking-Glass'', the sequel to ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865). The bo ...
", in
mirror writing
Mirror writing is formed by writing in the direction that is the reverse of the natural way for a given language, such that the result is the mirror image of normal writing: it appears normal when it is reflected in a mirror. It is sometimes u ...
, and sees
chess piece
A chess piece, or chessman, is a game piece that is placed on a chessboard to play the game of chess. It can be either White and Black in chess, white or black, and it can be one of six types: King (chess), king, Queen (chess), queen, Rook (chess ...
s coming to life. She goes out into a garden with talking flowers. There, she meets the Red Queen from the chess board (
Sian Phillips Sian or Siyan may refer to:
__NOTOC__ People
*Siân, a Welsh girl's name; list of people with this name
Places
*Sian, Iran (disambiguation), various places in Iran
*Sian, Russia, a rural locality in Amur Oblast, Russia
*Xi'an, China, formerly roman ...
), who shows her that the landscape is laid out like a gigantic chessboard. She will make Alice a queen if she can get as far as the eighth row. Alice becomes one of the White Queens pawns, and gets into a train that takes her directly to the fourth row. In a wood, the Gnat (
Steve Coogan
Stephen John Coogan (; born 14 October 1965) is an English actor, comedian, producer and screenwriter. He is most known for creating original characters such as Alan Partridge, a socially inept and politically incorrect media personality, which ...
) teaches her about the looking-glass insects. In crossing the wood where things have no names, she forgets her own name, but it comes back on the other side. Next she meets
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Tweedledum and Tweedledee are characters in an English nursery rhyme and in Lewis Carroll's 1871 book ''Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There''. Their names may have originally come from an epigram written by poet John Byrom. The ...
(
Gary Olsen
Gary Olsen (born Gary Kenneth Grant; 3 November 1957 – 12 September 2000) was an English actor. He played Ben in the BBC television sitcom ''2point4 Children''.
Biography
Olsen was born in London and lived with an aunt and uncle after b ...
and
Marc Warren
Marc Warren (born 20 March 1967) is an English actor, known for his British television roles. His roles have included Albert Blithe in '' Band of Brothers'', Danny Blue in '' Hustle'', Dougie Raymond in ''The Vice'', Dominic Foy in '' State ...
), who recite the poem "
The Walrus and the Carpenter
"The Walrus and the Carpenter" is a narrative poem by Lewis Carroll that appears in his book ''Through the Looking-Glass'', published in December 1871. The poem is recited in chapter four, by Tweedledum and Tweedledee to Alice. The poem is co ...
Michael Medwin
Michael Hugh Medwin, OBE (18 July 1923 – 26 February 2020) was an English actor and film producer.
Life and career
Medwin was born in London. He was educated at Canford School, Dorset, and the Institute Fischer, Montreux, Switzerland. He ...
) asleep under a tree. The brothers get ready to fight but run away, frightened by a giant crow.
The White Queen (
Penelope Wilton
Dame Penelope Alice Wilton (born 3 June 1946), styled Penelope, Lady Holm between 1998 and 2001, is an English actress. She is known for starring opposite Richard Briers in the BBC sitcom ''Ever Decreasing Circles'' (1984–1989); playing H ...
) arrives and shows her powers of
precognition
Precognition (from the Latin 'before', and 'acquiring knowledge') is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future.
There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a ...
. With her, Alice goes forward into the fifth row by crossing a stream in a rowing boat, but the Queen is then turned into
the Sheep
The Sheep is a character, created by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll. It appeared in Dodgson's 1871 book, ''Through the Looking-Glass'', the sequel to his 1865 book ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.''
Storyline
The Sheep ...
.
Alice enters the sixth row of the chess board by crossing another stream and meets
Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty is a character in an English nursery rhyme, probably originally a riddle and one of the best known in the English-speaking world. He is typically portrayed as an anthropomorphic egg, though he is not explicitly described as such. ...
(
Desmond Barrit
Desmond Barrit is a Welsh actor, best known for his stage work.
Biography
An early screen role for Barrit came in ''Alice through the Looking Glass'' (1998), in which he played Humpty Dumpty.
In 2003, he played Shylock in the Chichester Festiva ...
) on his
unbirthday
An unbirthday (originally written un-birthday) is an event celebrated on all days of the year which are not a person's birthday. It is a neologism which first appeared in Lewis Carroll, Lewis Carroll's 1871 novel ''Through the Looking-Glass.'' The ...
, who teaches Alice about
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsWhite King (
Geoffrey Palmer Geoffrey Palmer may refer to:
Politicians
* Sir Geoffrey Palmer, 1st Baronet (1598–1670), English lawyer and politician
*Sir Geoffrey Palmer, 3rd Baronet (1655–1732), English politician, Member of Parliament (MP) for Leicestershire
*Geoffrey Pa ...
), the king's horses, and the king's men try to help Humpty.
Alice, still a white pawn, crosses yet another stream to enter the seventh row and finds herself in the land of the Red Knight (
Greg Wise
Matthew Gregory Wise, born 1966, is an English actor and producer. He has appeared in several British television programmes and feature films. He played the role of John Willoughby in ''Sense and Sensibility'', which also starred Emma Thompson, ...
), who tries to capture her, but the White Knight (
Ian Holm
Sir Ian Holm Cuthbert (12 September 1931 – 19 June 2020) was an English actor who was knighted in 1998 for his contributions to theatre and film. Beginning his career on the British stage as a standout member of the Royal Shakespeare Company ...
) fights him off and leads her through a forest to the last stream, falling off his horse and reciting the poem
Haddocks' Eyes
"Haddocks' Eyes" is a song sung by The White Knight from Lewis Carroll's 1871 novel ''Through the Looking-Glass'', chapter VIII.
"Haddocks' Eyes" is an example used to elaborate on the symbolic status of the concept of "name": a name as iden ...
. This stream is not much more than a ditch, and Alice can step across it into the eighth row, when a queen's crown appears on her head. She is joined by both the Red and White Queens, who use
word play
Word play or wordplay (also: play-on-words) is a literary technique and a form of wit in which words used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement. Examples of word play include puns, phonet ...
to baffle her. They issue invitations to a coronation party to be hosted by Alice, but the party is chaotic, and Alice finds herself shaking the Red Queen to calm her down.
Alice wakes up safe at home with her daughter, little Alice.
Cast
Production
Apart from the innovation that Alice is played by an adult (she answers “seven and a half” when asked her age), the screenplay follows the text of the book closely, preserving Carroll's dialogue almost word for word. However, in another new element, Alice's hair style and her dress change throughout the film.Lance Weldy, ''Crossing Textual Boundaries in International Children's Literature'' (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), p. 120
Unusually, the "Wasp in a Wig" episode, which Carroll wrote but did not leave in the book as published, is included in the film, with the Wasp played by
Ian Richardson
Ian William Richardson (7 April 19349 February 2007) was a Scottish actor.
He portrayed the Machiavellian Tory politician Francis Urquhart in the BBC's '' House of Cards'' (1990–1995) television trilogy. Richardson was also a leading S ...
.
Reception
Critics Jaques and Giddens commented that "The genial rendition overall makes for a pleasant film aimed at children, with a strong sense that Alice has a fun time in her adventure." Film scholar Thomas Leitch, comparing
John Tenniel
Sir John Tenniel (; 28 February 182025 February 1914)Johnson, Lewis (2003), "Tenniel, John", ''Grove Art Online, Oxford Art Online'', Oxford University Press. Web. Retrieved 12 December 2016. was an English illustrator, graphic humorist and poli ...
's influence on popular images of Alice with Carroll's own, comments that "The stars who least resemble Tenniel's Alice are Kate Beckinsale, ... and dark-haired, plump-faced
Tina Majorino
Albertina Marie Majorino (; born February 7, 1985) is an American film and television actress. She started her career as a child actor, starring in films such as ''Andre (film), Andre'', ''When a Man Loves a Woman (film), When a Man Loves a Woma ...
in
Nick Willing
Nick Willing (born 1961) is a British director, producer and writer of films and television series.
Early life
Willing is the son of Portuguese painter Dame Paula Rego and English artist Victor Willing and was largely brought up in Portugal, ...
's 1999 adaptation for NBC television."Thomas Leitch, ''Film Adaptation and its Discontents: From Gone with the Wind to The Passion of the Christ'' (JHU Press, 2007), p. 316, footnote
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...