Alice through the Looking Glass (1998 film)

Alice through the Looking Glass is a 1998 British fantasy television film, based on Lewis Carroll's 1871 book Through the Looking-Glass, and starring Kate Beckinsale.

For other productions, see Through the Looking Glass (disambiguation).

Alice through the Looking Glass
Based onThrough the Looking-Glass
by Lewis Carroll
Screenplay byNick Vivian[1]
Directed byJohn Henderson[2]
StarringKate Beckinsale
Ian Holm
Siân Phillips
Geoffrey Palmer
Theme music composerDominik Scherrer[1]
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original language(s)English
Production
Producer(s)Trevor Eve,[3] Simon Johnson, and Paul Frift[1]
CinematographyJohn Ignatius[1]
Editor(s)David Yardley[1]
Running time83 minutes
Production company(s)
Release
Original networkChannel 4
Original release
  • 26 December 1998 (1998-12-26)

The film was released on DVD in 2005.[4]

Plot

The film opens with a mother (Kate Beckinsale) reading Through the Looking Glass to her daughter Alice (Charlotte Curley). The mother then finds herself travelling through the bedroom mirror into Looking-Glass Land and becoming Alice, but remains an adult.[2]

Alice finds a book containing "Jabberwocky", in mirror writing, and sees chess pieces coming to life. She goes out into a garden with talking flowers. There, she meets the Red Queen from the chess board (Sian Phillips), who shows her that the landscape is laid out like a gigantic chessboard. She will make Alice a queen if she can get as far as the eighth row. Alice becomes one of the White Queen's pawns, and gets into a train that takes her directly to the fourth row. In a wood, the Gnat (Steve Coogan) teaches her about the looking-glass insects. In crossing the wood where things have no names, she forgets her own name, but it comes back on the other side. Next she meets Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Gary Olsen and Marc Warren), who recite the poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter", with the Red King (Michael Medwin) asleep under a tree. The brothers get ready to fight but run away, frightened by a giant crow.

The White Queen (Penelope Wilton) arrives and shows her powers of precognition. With her, Alice goes forward into the fifth row by crossing a stream in a rowing boat, but the Queen is then turned into the Sheep.

Alice enters the sixth row of the chess board by crossing another stream and meets Humpty Dumpty (Desmond Barrit) on his unbirthday, who teaches Alice about portmanteau words before falling off his wall. The White King (Geoffrey Palmer), the king's horses, and the king's men try to help Humpty.

Alice, still a white pawn, crosses yet another stream to enter the seventh row and finds herself in the land of the Red Knight (Greg Wise), who tries to capture her, but the White Knight (Ian Holm) fights him off and leads her through a forest to the last stream, falling off his horse and reciting the poem Haddocks' Eyes. This stream is not much more than a ditch, and Alice can step across it into the eighth row, when a queen's crown appears on her head. She is joined by both the Red and White Queens, who use word play to baffle her. They issue invitations to a coronation party to be hosted by Alice, but the party is chaotic, and Alice finds herself shaking the Red Queen to calm her down.

Alice wakes up safe at home with her daughter, little Alice.

Cast

Production

Apart from the innovation that Alice is an adult, the screenplay follows the text of the book closely, preserving Carroll's dialogue almost word for word. However, in another new element, Alice's hair style changes for every scene.[4]

Unusually, the "Wasp in a Wig" episode, which Carroll wrote but did not leave in the book as published, is included in the film, with the Wasp played by Ian Richardson.[4][6]

Reception

A critic commented that

The genial rendition overall makes for a pleasant film aimed at children, with a strong sense that Alice has a fun time in her adventure.[2]

A film scholar, Thomas Leitch, has objected that Kate Beckinsale is "the screen Alice... who least resembles Tenniel's Alice".[7]

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References
  1. Opening and Closing Credits in film, viewed on YouTube 26 March 2020
  2. Zoe Jaques, Eugene Giddens, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass: A Publishing History (Routledge, 2016), p. 257
  3. Judith Jones, Beatrix Campbell, Annie Castledine, And All the Children Cried (Oberon, 2002), p. 5
  4. Lance Weldy, Crossing Textual Boundaries in International Children's Literature (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011), p. 120
  5. Knight Letter, Issues 71-77 (Lewis Carroll Society of North America, 2003), p. 49
  6. Lewis Carroll, Selwyn Hugh Goodacre, The Wasp in a Wig: A Suppressed Episode from Through the Looking Glass (Inky Parrot Press, 2015), p. 19
  7. Thomas Leitch, Film Adaptation and its Discontents: From Gone with the Wind to The Passion of the Christ (JHU Press, 2007), p. 316, footnote
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