Tim Burton, Tim Burton, Tim Bur… Dare we say his name three times, conjuring up a charming devil full of guile who is not one hundred percent reliable? Well, you will be relieved to hear that we do. Burton Burton Burton’s Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice opened the Venice Film Festival and got this 81-year-old cinematic party well and truly started.
Beetlejuice is one of Burton’s most beloved films and its eponymous lead (Michael Keaton) is dead, dead funny and a delight to behold. Keaton has exhumed the role he first played in 1988 and plays him with the same energy, intelligence and devilish gusto as he did in the original all those years ago.
He is not the only star from the original: Catherine O’Hara is back as the artist Delia Deetz along with Winona Ryder as her black-clad goth stepdaughter Lydia. Since the original film was released, O’Hara has reached national treasure status thanks to her role in Schitt’s Creek, while Ryder has enjoyed her own renaissance thanks to the cult classic Stranger Things.
Both women take certain elements from those respective characters and channel them here: O’Hara’s Delia is a larger-than-life drama queen who enjoys the finer things in life; Ryder’s Lydia is a bundle of nervous tics who overcomes her fears when her maternal instinct kicks in. Those maternal instincts come into play when Lydia’s teenage daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) gets ensnared in some nefarious underworld dealings. On the subject of stars bringing a little baggage from previous incarnations, Astrid bears more than a passing resemblance to Wednesday Addams (in fact, Burton directed Ortega in the first four episodes of Wednesday) – “She’s such a morbid little thing!” exclaims Delia.
But let’s get back to the beginning: the film opens with Lydia, who is now a psychic mediator with her own successful TV show produced by her preening, manipulative boyfriend Rory (a hilarious Justin Theroux). She and Astrid are estranged, the latter embarrassed by her mother’s profession, which she dismisses – if Lydia can commune with the dead, then why hasn’t her dad made an appearance?
When a family death occurs, the three women return to the haunted house in Winter River, the fawning fake Rory in tow. Meanwhile, Beetlejuice still hankers after Lydia, but there is another woman in black who is about to make his (after)life very complicated: this blast from his past is the hastily stapled together Delores (Monica Bellucci), a femme who is very, very fatale indeed. Added to the mix are a cast of dead and undead characters, including Willem Dafoe thoroughly enjoying himself as actor Wolf Jackson, who conspire to make this a truly entertaining romp.
Danny Elfman – Burton’s longstanding collaborator – returns to compose the score, while the soundtrack includes plenty of 1970s classics and a nod to the TV show Soul Train. (It should be mentioned that the Soul Train sequences are the only time we see any Black performers. Burton’s film is very, very white.)
The film contains some mickey-taking at the expense of Disney, stoking the flames of a decades-long rivalry, while actors are also the butt of a few jokes. Occasionally the fourth wall is broken, with Beetlejuice talking to the audience, involving us directly in the fun.
There are no bad performances here. While there are a couple of scenes that could have been shorter (the grand finale in particular), there are songs, there’s dancing, there’s a hint of romance, a touch of the macabre, a bit of sexiness and a lot of humour. Suffice to say that nobody does death like Tim Burton, and it’s a pleasure to follow him back into the underworld. You’ll leave the cinema and return to the world of the living with a spring in your step and a smile on your face.
