First View Movie Review: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016)

Well now, wasn’t this a peculiar movie? Although that can be said for anything Director Tim Burton puts his hand to. Here he plies a Brit version of Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Call it a creepy Hogwarts with fewer kids and less lessons.

Superpowered, but not X-Men

These kids aren’t being groomed as superheroes or wizards. There will be no saving the world here. The children don’t even grow up. They just hope to survive and continue their ‘peculiar’ ways. (This might be because Patrick Stewart isn’t the headmaster, but that’s neither here nor there.)

The children are taken into a ‘found family’ with some semblance of normalcy, and safety from persecution. In their forever looping day, they experience sunshine, laughter, games, stories, and togetherness, which is actually more than Professor X did with his mutants.

But both universes showcase time travel in different ways.

Is this a Groundhog Day film?

I went back and forth on this one. I have a very narrow vision of what constitutes a Groundhog Loop, and it’s not just jumping though time that counts (sorry, X-Men: Days of Future Past). And it’s not someone who doesn’t remember their previous day, so 50 First Dates, Eternal Sunshine, or Momento don’t fit either. You have to be stuck in an actual temporally infinite day, with or without a way out. So I’m going out on a fragile Burton-esque tree limb and say, yes, this is a Groundhog Loop.

What makes this case unique is that the loop is on purpose, with full intent, and no one wants to re-enter the normal timestream. Like a benign Dorian Grey portrait, the peculiar children would rapidly age and die. I’m not sure how long Miss Peregrine plans to keep herself and her students alive: conceivably forever?

Also, the endless day is set in the 1940s, so part of the fun is the period piece-ness of it all.

A boy full of bees

I really did think this was going to be another Superhero Mutant School going into the narrative, but looking at these kids, it’s clear their ‘gifts’ are more weird than useful. The twins wouldn’t have much of a life outside of the Home. A few others could pass for normal with adjustments like non-conducting gloves or heavy shoes. One just wears nice suits.

Some of the children’s gifts are more bizarre. Leave it to Burton to think up a boy full of bees, or a… well, what the girl with ringlets has. Then, the teen with unsavory necromancy skills showcases the sort of brilliant ethical misdirect from the best of Burton’s fertile ourve. (Nice callback to Ray Harryhausen too!)

I’d like to see a series about the different Peculiar Homes, since they make a point of mapping them out. Maybe someday we could have a version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, with an inter-academy tournament. While this could still happen, sadly ‘our’ kids will have aged out of their perpetually youthful roles.

Sometimes the macabre perversity of Tim Burton really creeps me out, but Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was crafted with such fun and love of the material that the production is elevated past mere whimsy. This is a good story, and it ends well. It’s not quite an A level film, but I’ll take it.

Movie Grade: B+

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