Taglines: Stay peculiar.
When Jacob discovers clues to a mystery that spans different worlds and times, he finds a magical place known as Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. But the mystery and danger deepen as he gets to know the residents and learns about their special powers… and their powerful enemies. Ultimately, Jacob discovers that only his own special “peculiarity” can save his new friends.
iss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a 2016 British-American dark fantasy film directed by Tim Burton, and written by Jane Goldman, based on the 2011 novel of the same name by Ransom Riggs. The film stars Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Chris O’Dowd, Allison Janney, Rupert Everett, Terence Stamp, Ella Purnell, Judi Dench and Samuel L. Jackson.
Filming began in February 2015 in London and the Tampa Bay Area. The film premiered at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas on September 25, 2016 and was theatrically released in the United States on September 30, 2016 by 20th Century Fox. It received mixed reviews from critics and has grossed over $196 million worldwide, against a production budget of $110 million.
About the Story
For years, Abraham “Abe” Portman (Terence Stamp) has told stories to his Floridian grandson, Jacob “Jake” Portman (Asa Butterfield) about his childhood battling tall gruesome tentaculed monsters and spending part of World War II living at “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” by the coast of Wales. The home’s residents and their headmistress, Miss Alma LeFay Peregrine (Eva Green), possess unique abilities and are known as “Peculiars”.
When Jake receives a frantic phone call from his grandfather, he and his coworker and supervisor Shelly rush to his grandfather’s home. In the woods behind the house, Jake finds his grandfather dying and with his eyes removed, and he tells Jake to find “the bird, the loop and September 3, 1943”. Jake sees one of the gigantic monsters from Abe’s stories, behind Shelly, but when she turns back and shoots, the monster disappear.
Jake begins seeing Dr. Golan (Allison Janney), a psychiatrist, who says it is natural for Jake to hallucinate about his grandfather’s stories to cope with grief. Following Dr. Golan’s advice, and questioned by a letter written 2 years earlier by Miss Peregrine to Abe, found in one of his birthday presents from Abe, Jake and his father Franklin (Chris O’Dowd) travel to Wales. Jake explores the island and finds out the children’s home was destroyed during a Luftwaffe raid. As he explores, the children from Abe’s stories greet him and they enter a cave. Jake goes back from the cave to his hotel, where people are now dressed in 1940s style and accuse Jake of being a German spy, but the Peculiar Children help Jake escape.
They take him back to the house, this time intact, where Miss Peregrine greets him. She explains that she is a Peculiar belonging to a female class named “Ymbrynes” who have the power to shapeshift into birds (like Miss Peregrine transform into a peregrine falcon) and manipulate time, and that she created a time loop permanently set to September 3, 1943 in which she and the children hide from the outside world. The loop can only be entered by Peculiars who go through the cave, but if the children spend outside the loop for too long they will quickly age (and maybe dying).
Jake is introduced to the rest of the children, including Emma Bloom (Ella Purnell), a girl lighter than air, who can also manipulate air and created liquid bubbles under water, who also was in love with Abe, and necromancer Enoch O’Connor (Finlay MacMillan), who can reanimate dead bodies and bring life to unanimated objects by inserting hearts on them, who is also jealous of Jake, even Abe before. He learns that one of the children, a super-strong Victor Buntley (Louis Davison), was previously killed by another invisible monster, and that, like Abe, he’s also a Peculiar with the power of seeing these monsters.
Miss Peregrine explains that the monsters, named “Hollows”, are former Peculiars who were transformed by performing a failed experiment on themselves trying to harvest the powers of an Ymbryne (which was killed on the process) to became immortals. Their leader, shapeshifter Mr. Barron (Samuel L. Jackson) decided to hunt down Peculiars (mainly children ones) and consume enough of their eyeballs to became “Wights”, visible Peculiar humans but with also milky-white eyes.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Directed by: Tim Burton
Starring: Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Samuel L. Jackson, Judi Dench, Rupert Everett, Allison Janney, Chris O’Dowd, Ella Purnell, Georgia Pemberton
Screenplay by: Jane Goldman
Production Design by: Gavin Bocquet
Cinematography by: Bruno Delbonnel
Film Editing by: Chris Lebenzon
Costume Design by: Colleen Atwood
Set Decoration by: Chris August, Amanda Bernstein, Elli Griff, Kat Kane
Music by: Michael Higham, Matthew Margeson
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of fantasy action / violence and peril.
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Release Date: September 30, 2016
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