‘Wednesday’ Review

‘Wednesday’ is a spinoff of the much beloved Addams Family story. Wednesday is the daughter of Gomez and Morticia Addams and is now old enough to attend their alma mater.  Jenna Ortega fills the titular role and brings a good amount of doom and gloom alongside Wednesday’s sharp tongue and whit that audiences are accustomed to.

The Story here is a gothic coming of age with supernatural elements. Wednesday is on her own and trying to track down a serial killer in the town near her school. The other, more compelling, conflict is having to navigate the social hierarchy of the school, classic. Furthering this plot thread is the increased attention to supernatural elements of the Addams’s world, sirens, werewolves and gorgons are all cliques at the institution. The previous Addams Features have never placed such and emphasis on this detail, with the family being morbid and strange rather than genuinely unnatural. Wednesday too has been given premonition abilities, these are used to pose convenient red herrings and clues into her investigations.

Another interesting point is that Wednesday is widely allowed to breathe as a character…. being the title character will do that. However, the rest of the family are frequently shoehorned in, used to solve problems, direct Wednesday and let’s not forget, to please the audience. Catherine Zeta Jones and Luis Guzman play the parents very well, but I do wish they were left out more, maybe establishing and concluding scenes would have been enough?

Lastly, the show is directed by none other than Tim burton and is an aesthetic and theme he can absolutely run with. A Dark colour palette and spooky story is exactly what you would expect from Burton, and he does not disappoint. Everything is fittingly macabre and eerie whilst being full of life.

I recommend Wednesday if you are a fan of dark fairy-tale, the Addams Family, Tim Burton or even just have nothing else to watch. This series is very competent in what it is trying to achieve, and I really enjoyed it. Small note of negativity, it is a little bit basic in its twists and turns, never very surprising. But it is largely aimed at teens and that comes with a certain style of writing so it’s not a fair complaint.