I watched James and the Giant Peach for the first time since I was nine the other day. I was amazed by how wacky the movie was, even though it was for kids. I don’t think that a movie that was anything like it would be made today, only 15 years later. You wouldn’t see a big-budget film with singing centipedes, violin-playing scholarly grasshoppers and a pair of terrifying, dead-looking aunts. In 2011, that’s a surefire way to get your script turned down. Unless you’re Tim Burton, who actually did (and probably still could) make this movie. And that’s why you’ve got to watch the version from 1996 that probably would have pleased the pants off of quirky Roald Dahl, had he lived to see it.  

The story follows James Henry Trotter (Paul Terry), a seven-year old boy who lives happily with his parents in England. His parents tell him that they want to move to New York City and to show him the Empire State Building. The earliest sequence with James’ parents is already dreamlike and unreal—setting the scene for what happens next. James’ parents are killed by a rhinoceros from the sky, a beast that comes from clouds and has glowing yellow eyes.

James is sent to live with his two aunts, Aunt Sponge (Miriam Margolyes) and Aunt Spiker (Joanna Lumley). These two aunts are totally creepy, even to me now, because they are made up in white faces with red, running lipstick. They are totally, awesomely terrifying. They beat James and make him perform chores around the house all day long. James is terribly unhappy and sings his sorrows to a spider in a sad little song.

Out of the blue one day, a Confederate soldier (Peter Postlethwaite, who also serves as the narrator and was cast, I think, because of his resemblance to the real-life Roald Dahl) comes an brings him a bag of crocodile tongues that he is supposed to eat to make his life improve. Carrying the bag gingerly, James trips over a rock and sends the crocodile tongues flying into his aunts’ dead peach tree.

Soon, the dead tree grows a huge peach. James isn’t allowed to touch the peach, but the nasty aunts sell tickets to everyone around the town. One night, sent to pick up trash, James sneaks near to the peach and takes a huge, delicious-looking hunk into his hands. One of the crocodile tongues leaps into James’ bite and he eats it, transforming the entire scene from life-action into animation.

James climbs inside the peach where he meets the other inhabitants affected by his spilling of the crocodile tongues. There’s Miss Spider (played by Susan Sarandon with a French accent), Grasshopper, Ladybug, Centipede, Glowworm and Earthworm. The group knows that they need to get away from the evil aunts, so they begin a trans-Atlantic trip to New York City by harnessing the peach to a flock of spiders.

The logic of James and the Giant Peach isn’t the same as in most children’s literature—there is no dream or magical transportation device—James’ life is truly, not metaphorically, changed by the crocodile tongues and the giant peach. And it’s nice not to have to think in metaphor for a change, but rather, fully and deeply in fantasy.