The Witches dvd

Roald Dahl’s The Witches is a 2020 dark comedy fantasy film directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Zemeckis, Kenya Barris, and Guillermo del Toro. It is based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Roald Dahl and is the second feature-length adaptation of the novel, after the 1990 film of the same name directed by Nicolas Roeg. The film stars Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer, and Stanley Tucci, and is narrated by Chris Rock

Plot

In 1968, a young boy goes to live with his grandmother in Demopolis, Alabama after a car accident kills his parents in Chicago. Gradually, the boy is cheered up by his grandmother, who buys him a pet mouse whom he names Daisy. One day, the boy goes to a store to buy a box of nails to train Daisy and to build a house for her as well. The boy is approached by a witch trying to lure him with a snake and a caramel, but his grandmother calls him, and the witch disappears.

After telling his grandmother about the encounter, the boy learns that the witches are in fact real. She says a witch cursed her childhood friend Alice into spending the rest of her life as a chicken. The grandmother says that witches never leave once they find a child. Frantically, they decide to stay in a nearby hotel where her cousin Eston is the executive chef. While there, the grandmother teaches the boy how to tell a witch from an ordinary woman: real witches have claws instead of fingernails, which they hide by wearing gloves; are bald, which they hide by wearing wigs that give them rashes; have square feet with no toes, which they hide by wearing sensible shoes; have a purple tinge in their pupils; and have a powerful sense of smell, which they use to sniff out children.

The next day, the boy takes Daisy and a rope to do some training at a grand hall. During his walk there, he meets a gluttonous but friendly boy named Bruno, who is pulled away by his mother. The boy then goes into the grand hall, thinking he will be alone. As he is getting ready to train Daisy, a group of witches led by their all-powerful leader, The Grand High Witch, enters the grand hall. The boy hides under the stage, and so overhears the Grand High Witch planning to give the world’s children a potion, mixed into confectionery products, that will transform them all into mice. The Grand High Witch waits for Bruno to arrive, to whom she earlier gave a chocolate bar laced with the potion. After Bruno arrives, he turns into a mouse and enters the vent where the boy and Daisy are hiding. The Grand High Witch discovers the boy and forcibly transforms him into a mouse with the potion, before they escape.

Fleeing to the hotel room where the boy and his grandmother are staying, they tell the grandmother of the witches’ plan and discover that the Grand High Witch is staying in the hotel room below them and that Daisy was once an orphaned young human girl named Mary turned into a mouse by a witch. He, Bruno, and Mary devise a plan to get a bottle of the potion so that the grandmother can devise a cure to turn them back into children. The plan to get the potion is successful, but since she is unable to create a cure, they instead decide to put the potion into a broth of pea soup which will be given to the witches during their dinner. All the witches drink the soup except the Grand High Witch, who realizes that she met the grandmother before; she was the witch who turned Alice into a chicken. While the mice steal the Grand High Witch’s room key, the witches all begin turning into rats, and chaos ensues.

After she and the mice flee to the Grand High Witch’s room, the grandmother starts to collect all the potions to destroy them. The Grand High Witch finds the grandmother, and prepares to kill her, but the mice intervene and trick the Grand High Witch into swallowing her own potion, transforming her into a rat. They trap her in an ice bucket and prevent her from escaping. Before they leave the room, the grandmother takes the Grand High Witch’s trunk full of money and also releases her cat Hades from its cage. As they close the door, Hades attacks and kills The Grand High Witch.

Since his parents do not accept him anymore, Bruno joins Mary, the boy, and the grandmother to go home with The Grand High Witch’s trunk and become a family. Years later, the grown boy (still a mouse) and his grandmother advise young children against the witches.

Cast

Anne Hathaway as the Grand High Witch, the powerful and evil witch who is the leader of all witches in the world. Hathaway also voices her rat form.
Octavia Spencer as The Grandmother, a healer and the boy’s grandmother who is the long-time old enemy of the Grand High Witch.
Miranda Sarfo Peprah portrays a young version of the grandmother.
Stanley Tucci as Mr. R.J Stringer, the hotel manager.
Jahzir Kadeem Bruno as Hero Boy, a young boy who is turned into a mouse by the Grand High Witch. Bruno also voices his mouse form.
Chris Rock as the voice of Older Hero, the narrator and as an elder mouse who tells the firsthand account of his experience as a child to a group of children.
Codie-Lei Eastick as Bruno Jenkins, an English boy who is turned into a mouse. Eastick also voices his mouse form.
Kristin Chenoweth as the voice of Daisy, the boy’s pet mouse. It is revealed that she was once a human girl named Mary who ran away from the orphanage and was turned into a mouse by the witches four months prior to the events of the film.[5][6][7]
Charles Edwards as Mr. Jenkins, Bruno’s father.
Morgana Robinson as Mrs. Jenkins, Bruno’s mother.
Josette Simon as Zelda, a witch.[8]
Eugenia Caruso as Consuella, a witch.[8]
Ana-Maria Maskell as Esmerelda, a witch.[8]
Orla O’Rourke as Saoirse, a witch.[8]
Penny Lisle as a witch.[8]
Simon Manyonda as Sous-Chef
Philippe Spall as a Chef
Brian Bovell as Reginald