Tim Burton’s 2010 film Alice in Wonderland is not a faithful adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s beloved books. Instead, it is a bold, visually spectacular “re-imagining”—a sequel of sorts, a coming-of-age story wrapped in the skin of a classic fairy tale. It asks a provocative question: What happens when the girl who fell down the rabbit hole grows up?
The film is a feast for the senses, from Danny Elfman’s haunting score to the lush, Oscar-winning art direction. However, its divergence from Carroll’s source material divided critics and purists. Some mourned the loss of the books’ playful nonsense logic and gentle satire. Others found the CGI-heavy action finale—a battle sequence straight out of a fantasy epic—at odds with the story’s intimate, surreal heart. alice.in.wonderland.2010
The film opens in a Victorian England painted in stifling, sepia-toned reality. Nineteen-year-old Alice Kingsleigh (Mia Wasikowska), haunted by a recurring dream of a white rabbit, finds herself trapped by the rigid expectations of society. Pressured into accepting a dull lord’s marriage proposal, she flees—only to tumble once again into the familiar, yet profoundly twisted, world of Underland. Tim Burton’s 2010 film Alice in Wonderland is