The Modern Shades of Wonderland

Bringing a whole new and mixed version of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Alice through the looking-glass’ from Lewis Carroll. Alice is a mini-series of two episodes written, created and directed by Nick Willing, produced by Michael O'Connor as a Canadian and British co-production that was launched in 2009 by the American channel Syfy. This mini-serie have 8 wins and 14 nominations.

Cast

Main cast: Caterina Scorsone as Alice Hamilton, Kathy Bates as The Queen of Hearts, Andrew Lee Potts as the Hatter, Tim Curry as Dodo, Harry Dean Santon as Caterpillar and Philip Winchester as Jack of Hearts.

With a science fiction footprint, our dear and well known Alice, here a grown up woman and a teacher of martial arts,  sees her life changing directions after surprisingly arriving on time to see her new boyfriend (Jack) being kidnapped by a few weird men. Following him, after receiving a ring from Jack, she found herself in another place after having passed through a mirror.

Following Jack and the White Rabbit

After 150 years (Wonderland’s “time”), since her first time in Wonderland when she was 10, and was abandoned by her father, many things have changed.

Confusing twins Twedledee and Twedledum.

Differently from the young Alice of the book, now grown up, she raises more complex issues such as: Is her father alive or not? Why do her relationships never work? In this version she has no interest to become the Queen of Wonderland even though her boyfriend Jack wanted her to be.

We can also see little references to the books in a very subtle way, that is, the Oysters, the characters are no longer animals, but humans having circular arguments and enigmatic riddles such as those spoken by Tweedledee and Tweedledum , some traditional songs also included in the movie as spoken poems such as Humpty Dumpty. But this only calls the attention of those who have read the books.

The 10 of Clubs (Zak Santiago) looks like an archbishop or 

even a dark version of the Pope, doesn't he? 

Subliminal intentions detected! 

The good aspects of this version are the analogies we can make with the real world with the reflections it brings about our unceasing searching for deeper emotions and manipulation of the population with the control of knowledge by the Queen. This control was the reason for the appearance of a Resistance. The same way we did in the past with Alexandria’s library, the Queen of Hearts wanted to do with Wonderland's library. The Queen of Wonderland’s way of acting in the original story was a way to mock at the way the royalty used to treat their subordinates. In modern times, this can be a good ironic way of metaphor that relates those kinds of despots with our actual dictators and governors of the “false” democracy. This can be noticed in the speech of the Queen of Hearts when she manipulates the population of Wonderland by using potions to give them extra sensations in the Casino Happy Hearts.

Charlie (the Knight), Alice and Hatter.

However, this production loses in the velocity, in the secondarization of some characters for instance the Caterpillar, the cats Cheshire and Dinah; besides the special effects are a little bit poor (just check the Jabberwocky), like many British TV series productions. On the other hand, the plot is very interesting. Characters such as the Hatter and Charlie can involve the spectators. Andrew Lee Potts and Matt Frewer did a great job playing the Hatter and the Knight respectively.  In spite of not being a much known production, it is worth to be watched. Accept the failures and feel invited to check this whole new world where there is no such thing as time, with beautiful sceneries, costumes and good metaphors with our reality. You will be surprised with the end of this exciting story. 

Because what it is, it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would, you see?