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House review of Charlotte`s Web (2006)

This new, live-action version of Charlotte’s Web is sweet. And it feels like that’s all there is to say about it, but I’ll try to find something else. The problem is that talking animals never come off as well in live-action as they do in animation, and nothing about either live-action or animation can even begin to equal the charm and simple grace of E.B. White’s book.

But to be fair, the story is so beautiful and so beloved, that no film can entirely ruin it, either. And this adaptation is pretty faithful to the book. Dakota Fanning plays Fern, the young crusader who insists on saving the life a runt pig, naming him Wilbur, and dressing him up like a baby doll. Soon, though Wilbur has outgrown his pram and has to go live in the barn of Fern’s aunt and uncle, the Zuckermans. Fern visits him every day, and she alone of the humans in this story can hear and participate in the conversation of the animal world. Much of the humor and sparkle of this movie is centered around Fern, with her unconditional love for and delight in her animal friends, which sometimes provokes anxiety in her parents. (That was White’s little dig at adults who are too grown up to remember how it is to be a child.)

Although Wilbur grew rapidly from infancy to young pig-hood, once he reaches the Zuckermans’ farm, he seems to have peaked. All through the summer and fall, he never grows or changes. By the time of the State Fair, he’s still the same size as he was when he went to live with the Zuckermans. My theory is that this is because adult male pigs are disgusting—as shown through the character of Uncle, another spring pig like Wilbur, who is huge and disgusting.

Anyway, the central plot conflict is that Wilbur finds out that he’s going to become Christmas dinner, and he gets squeamish and whines that he doesn’t want to die. An enterprising barn spider named Charlotte contrives a way to save him by weaving messages about him into her web. Wilbur becomes a minor celebrity, goes to the State Fair, and in the end his life is spared.

The movie is so faithful to the book that it is more of a series of illustrations than a film adaptation. The world that Fern and her family live in is idealized, just as White idealized it in his retelling of the halcyon days of his youth. Photographically this plays out in crisp colorful shots of perfectly square fields and perfectly repaired red barns. Most of the characters wear pastels, and everybody, even Wilbur. There’s no indication that he ever rolls in muck or buries his face in his slop.

The problem with either of the movie adaptations is that they are often so busy trying to tell the whole story that they treat all the details as equally important, when for White, they were not so at all. The most important thing for White was the relationship of Wilbur with his two mother figures, Charlotte and Fern, and Wilbur’s gradual ability to stand on his own feet as he loses both of them.

Still, as I said, it’s a sweet film and a good story, one every child loves, and one every parent can feel confident will do their children no harm.

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Film Rating: 2.8/10 (10 votes cast)

Reviewed by Elessar
Last updated:

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