Wonkette Movie Night: Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

'You don't have to make us feel safe ... because you've made us feel brave.'

The definition of “peculiar” from Oxford Languages is strange, unusual, distinctive, or special. The children under the protective wings of Miss Peregrine are described by her as peculiars, each child shunned by the outside world because of their special abilities. On a small island called Cairnholm off the coast of Wales they’ve made a life for themselves safe from those who would persecute them for their distinctiveness.

Jake has been drawn to visit the children’s home on Cairnholm, a place described to him by his grandfather Abraham in stories of the girl who can control air, the small child with superhuman strength, the invisible boy and many others. Jake’s grandfather was part of this family of peculiars but left them to seek out a life that allowed him to begin his own family. He protects his grandson from the truth by telling him the truths that were too fantastical to be believed. When his grandfather is murdered, Jake sets out to find the reality that he had thought to be just fairy tales. He will follow the clues his grandfather has left behind and journey to Cairnholm.

The fantastical finds him and at a grand manor he meets Miss Alma Peregrine, who already knew of his impending arrival. In his grandfather’s stories he had explained what made her so unique, an ability to transform into her surname.

As Miss Peregrine introduces the family to him she explains to Jake,

“You see I’m a type of peculiar called a Ymbryne. A Ymbryne’s main skill is the manipulation of time. We chose a safe place, a safe day and create a loop. Preserve the last 24 hours. Reset the loop and the day is yours to live again. Reset it daily and you can stay there forever, entirely safe from the outside world.”

It is her job to protect the children from evil beings who wish to steal what is special from them for their own corrupt desires. But evil can be hard to keep out of a safe, insulated world, it always seems to find its way in. This family of women who can become birds and the children they protect must find a way to come together using all their peculiar talents to save themselves and each other.

Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children was based on the 2011 novel from Ransom Riggs. The novel includes historical found photography mixed into the narrative telling the story. Riggs, a photographer, had originally planned the work to be a picture book. The New York Times interviewed the author who explained that as an 11-year-old he would visit flea markets with his grandmother and find boxes of old snapshots. A photo of a girl reminded him of a past crush and he bought the photo and kept it next to his bed. “Years later, I took it out and looked on the back, and it said that she had died at age 15 of leukemia. I thought, oh, wow, I’ve been living with a ghost.”

That sense of a past that still seems alive and how time may just be another of those things we don’t fully understand is at the heart of this magical story.

An original vintage photo that was the inspiration for The Twins from the novel by Ransom Riggs.

Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children stars Asa Butterfield, Ella Purnell, Eva Green, Samuel L. Jackson, Terence Stamp, Judi Dench, Chris O’Dowd, and Allison Janney. Directed by Tim Burton.

Available with subscription on Disney+. Free on YouTube with ads. $3.99 in the usual places.

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The animated short is Pub Dog from Bird Box Studio.

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