She thought it was just a school, but the rules were brutal, the walls were high, and escape seemed impossible.

‘SPOILER ALERT’

A woman named Mrs. Wormwood refuses to believe that she’s pregnant even though she has a big belly. The doctor doesn’t seem to understand this, and he tells her that she’s already due to deliver the baby. Mrs Wormwood still argues that she can’t be pregnant, but as she feels pain in her belly, the doctor tells her that she’s having a contraction.

As she mentions that contractions are for pregnant women, she becomes increasingly uncomfortable, and it turns out that she’s about to go into labor. Mrs Wormwood doesn’t look happy about this, but the doctor quickly gets her taken to the labor room. After a while, Mrs Wormwood gives birth to a baby girl, but her husband, Mr Wormwood, looks disappointed because he was expecting a boy.

Even though the doctor says he’s the father of a baby girl, Mr Wormwood keeps calling his daughter a boy. As he’s then leaving the hospital with his wife, they both lament about how having a child is a terrible thing. Many years later, Mr and Mrs Wormwood’s child, Matilda, spends some time at a mobile library owned by a woman named Mrs Phelps.

When it’s time for Mrs Phelps to close for the day, she tells Matilda to go home because she’s sure her parents will be happy to see her. Matilda doesn’t think her parents have ever been happy to have her as a child, but she sarcastically tells Mrs Phelps that she’s sure they’re waiting for her. When Matilda gets home, she hears her mom talking about how they’ve never sent her to school before.

Mr Wormwood still refers to Matilda as a boy, and he tells his wife that their child always goes to school because she comes home with books every day. Matilda corrects him that she’s a girl, and she also mentions that she gets the books from the library. Mr and Mrs Wormwood then argue about whose fault it was that they never sent Matilda to school.

Shortly after, Mrs Wormwood reminds her husband that there are school inspectors in their house who want to find out more about Matilda’s education. As they wonder what they’ll say to avoid getting sanctioned, Mr Wormwood suggests lying their way out of the problem, and his wife agrees to follow his lead. A few minutes later, while they’re talking to the school inspectors, Mr and Mrs Wormwood lie that they’ve been homeschooling Matilda.

Matilda hears this and looks disappointed while she’s in the kitchen, and one of the inspectors, Miss Honey, sees her. As Matilda walks away to sit by the staircase, Honey leaves the table and goes to meet her. She then introduces herself and asks how Matilda feels about going to a normal school instead of being homeschooled.

Matilda seems interested in this, and she asks what it’s like to go to a normal school. Honey says it can sometimes be intense, but that her own classes are always fun. She adds that she teaches her class about history, music, and literature. As Matilda hears the word literature, she asks if there will be books in her class. Honey says there are many books at the school, and that she’ll even teach Matilda how to write her own.

Matilda likes the idea of writing her own book, but as she hears her parents still talking to the other inspector, she says she has to go to her room. After a while, the inspectors leave the house, and Matilda stares out of her room window to watch Honey going away with her bicycle. Almost immediately, Mr Wormwood enters her room and angrily says that he’s getting fined because of her.

Matilda says it’s not her fault that he didn’t send her to school, but Mr Wormwood still blames her. He then mentions that he’s sending her to a school called Crunchem Hall so that she’ll have to deal with a big, strong, and scary headmistress named Trunchbull. Mr Wormwood says that Trunchbull used to compete at the Olympics, and that he has already informed her that Matilda is a stubborn girl.

Matilda doesn’t like this, but Mr Wormwood says that Trunchbull is already looking forward to seeing her. As he leaves her room, Matilda looks sad because she doesn’t know why her dad lied to potentially make things hard for her at her new school. Just then, Matilda sneaks into Mr Wormwood’s closet and pours some dye into his hair tonic.

Mr Wormwood senses that Matilda is up to something, but as he checks his closet, he doesn’t see her there. He then applies the hair tonic on his hair, and much to his surprise, it turns green. Mr Wormwood is pissed by this, but as he goes to Matilda’s room to scold her for messing with his hair tonic, he sees her sleeping and looks confused.

As he leaves though, it turns out that Matilda is only pretending to be asleep. The next morning, Matilda leaves the house early and heads to Crunchem Hall. When she gets there, she sees that the gate is still locked, and she realizes that she came in too early. Just then, Mrs. Phelps passes the front of the school and tells Matilda that the school doesn’t open for another hour. Matilda says she knows, and that she only came in early because she’s excited about her first day at school.

She adds that she’s really looking forward to writing her own stories just like Honey said. Before Mrs Phelps leaves, Matilda says she already has a story that is trying to get out of her. Mrs Phelps says it’s best if she tells the story before it forces its way out, and Matilda agrees to do this.

She then enters Mrs Phelps’ mobile library to tell her story. In the story, two of the greatest circus performers ever, an escapologist and an acrobat, fall in love and decide to get married. After a while, they start feeling lonely because they don’t have kids. As they fail in their many attempts to have kids, they eventually decide to focus on their work and do even more daring feats. One day, while in a hall with their fans, they announce that they’ll be doing the most dangerous feat ever in a few days.

As Matilda gets to this point, she stops the story, and Mrs Phelps looks confused. Matilda then mentions that she doesn’t know what will happen next at the moment, but that she’ll try to continue the story the following day. Mrs Phelps agrees to wait till then, and as Matilda heads to school, the librarian tells her to be careful.

Matilda then says she’s not really worried because if anyone does scary things to her, she plans to retaliate. Mrs Phelps tells Matilda not to forget that two wrongs never make a right, but she seems to have made up her mind about what she’ll do if anyone tries to scare or hurt her. Shortly after, Matilda walks into the school and sees a fellow new girl named Lavender.

As they realize that they’re both new, they decide to walk together. After the school gate gets locked, one of the senior students sees the new girls and warns them about how things aren’t normal at the school. All the other students also warn them to stay out of trouble because they’ll be treated badly by Trunchbull. They add that their lives as they know it will never be the same at the school. Lavender and Matilda look shocked by this, but some prefects eventually show up to take them to their class.

Just before they find their classroom, they hear an announcement from Trunchbull warning the students to leave the hallway or get punished. Before they get into trouble, Honey sees Matilda and Lavender and calls them into her class. As she welcomes them to the class, a boy named Nigel complains about the math problem on the board.

Honey then tells him not to worry about it because the math problem is for an adult class. Following this, Honey asks if any of the students will volunteer to polish off the things on the board. Matilda volunteers to do it, but as she gets to the board, she starts solving the math problem.

Honey is shocked by this because she actually wanted Matilda to clean the board, but she still looks impressed. Matilda then mentions that she thought she was supposed to solve the problem. As she talks about how she solved it, Honey asks if maths is her favorite thing. Matilda says she prefers reading books, and that she has read several books that week already.

Honey looks impressed and asks about the books she has read, and Matilda mentions more than five books. Matilda’s classmates are shocked by this, and Honey also looks amazed. As she believes that Matilda is a genius, she heads to Trunchbull’s office to offer a suggestion. After Trunchbull tells her to enter the office, Honey says she believes Matilda is a genius, and that they need to place her in an advanced class. Trunchbull realizes that she’s talking about Mr Wormwood’s daughter, and she tells Honey that Matilda is a troublemaker.

Honey defends Matilda and tells Trunchbull to consider sending her to a higher class, but the headmistress says it’s against the school rules. Honey suggests making Matilda’s case an exception, but this gets Trunchbull pissed. She then sends Honey out of her office after blatantly rejecting her suggestion. Later that day, Matilda arrives home from school and asks her mom if she wants to hear about how her first day went. Mrs Wormwood says she doesn’t care, and Mr Wormwood enters the room to talk about how he’s about to sell a luxury car.

Matilda looks confused because her dad doesn’t have a luxury car, but he says he has two damaged ones. He adds that he joined the good parts of both cars and made it one so he could sell it for a huge price. As he calls himself a genius, Matilda says that what he did was wrong and illegal. Mr Wormwood looks pissed and snatches a book from her hand, and his wife encourages him to tear it. Matilda says it’s a library book, but Mr Wormwood doesn’t seem to care.

After he tears the book, Matilda looks sad but eventually decides to retaliate by filling his hat with glue. She successfully goes through with her plan, and Mr Wormwood unknowingly wears the hat as he leaves the house. The next day, at school, Lavender and Matilda’s classmates ask how she’s so clever even though they all have the same brain size.

One of them seems particularly impressed, and he asks if Matilda can do other things with her brain, including telekinesis. As Matilda says she can’t, a boy named Bruce mentions that being clever at Crunchem Hall isn’t worth it because Trunchbull doesn’t like it. Matilda looks confused because she believes they’re supposed to learn to be clever at school, but Bruce mentions that Trunchbull treats them like they’re in prison.

As Bruce and the others then talk about some ridiculous things Trunchbull has done to some students in the past, Matilda says it’s not possible, and that the big kids are only trying to scare them. Just then, a senior student tells Matilda that she can’t really be scared until she has been to a place called Chokey. As Matilda asks what it is, the other students look scared, and the senior mentions that it’s a small cupboard made of spikes, wood, and nails.

She adds that it’s a place where Trunchbull sends the kids when they’ve done something she doesn’t like. Just then, Nigel shows up to tell the other kids to help him because Trunchbull thinks he did something to prank her. The senior student says he’ll be sent to chokey, but Matilda doesn’t think it’s right because Nigel didn’t do anything wrong.

As Nigel then begs her to help him, Matilda tells everyone to cover him with their blazers while he lies down on the floor. After they do this, Trunchbull comes outside to look for Nigel. Matilda then tells her where he is and adds that Nigel has been sleeping under the blazers for about an hour because he has a rare sleeping disorder.

As Nigel gets up, he backs Matilda’s claims, and even though Trunchbull looks pissed because she won’t be able to punish him, she leaves him alone. She then turns to a girl named Amanda and complains about her hairstyle. Amanda says her mom makes it for her because she loves the hairstyle, but Trunchbull insults her.

She then grabs Amanda’s hair and throws her out of the school, leaving Matilda shocked. Trunchbull eventually tells the other kids to check if Amanda is fine, and as they do this, she goes to meet Matilda to warn her not to cause any trouble because she’ll be punished. After Trunchbull confirms that Amanda is fine, she heads to her office and makes an announcement telling Matilda that she can never win as long as she’s a student at the school.

Later that day, Matilda meets up with Mrs Phelps to continue her story. In the new installment, the Acrobat’s evil step sister organizes the big event where the Acrobat and the escapologist will perform their greatest feat. Interestingly, the escapologist shows up on stage without his wife, and he announces that the show will be cancelled because his wife is pregnant.

The guests at the show rejoice with him, and his wife eventually joins him on stage. After a while, though, the acrobat’s evil step sister gets angry and orders them to continue with the performance because they already signed a contract. The acrobat and the escapologist are shocked by this, but they don’t know what to say.

As Matilda gets to this point, she stops her story and says she doesn’t know what happens next. Mrs Phelps finds this strange, but Matilda mentions that the story comes to her in parts. Mrs Phelps then sounds concerned about the way the story is taking a dark turn, but Matilda seems pissed and refuses to continue the story when she gets the next part.

Mrs Phelps immediately apologizes and tells Matilda that she would love to know how the story ends. The next day at school, Honey calls Matilda to the side and says she believes her newest student has an extraordinary mind. She then mentions that she’ll start giving Matilda a selection of very clever books so that she can read them to the class.

Matilda is happy about this, and she hugs Honey tightly. Just then, Trunchbull sees them and scolds Honey for hugging Matilda and giving her special treatment. Before Honey can say much, Trunchbull drags Matilda to the center of the cafeteria and accuses her of stealing her private chocolate cake.

She then tells Matilda to admit it or get punished. As Matilda is about to say that she didn’t steal it, Bruce belches, and everyone realizes that he’s the one who stole the cake. Trunchbull then goes to meet him to ask if he enjoyed her cake. Bruce says he did, but as he’s about to apologize, Trunchbull tells him not to worry about it. Bruce looks relieved, but before he knows what’s happening, Trunchbull orders the cooks to bring a big cake to Bruce’s table.

She then tells him that he’ll be forgiven if he eats every last crumb of the cake. Bruce says he’s already full, but Trunchbull doesn’t care. Honey also tries to beg Trunchbull to forgive him, but the headmistress insists that Bruce has to eat everything.

Following this, Bruce starts eating the cake, and his classmates encourage him. After a while, he successfully eats all the cake, and Honey gets too excited and screams happily. Trunchbull is not happy about this, and she tells Bruce to follow her for the next aspect of his punishment.

As everyone looks confused, Trunchbull says that Bruce will be sent to chokey. Suddenly, Matilda stands up for Bruce and tells Trunchbull that she can’t just change the rules after he ate all the cake. Trunchbull doesn’t care about what she thinks, and she eventually drags Bruce away.

As the students then head home, Trunchbull makes an announcement telling them that they’ll never be able to overcome her because they’re weak. Shortly after, Matilda meets Mrs Phelps again to continue her story. In the new installment, the Acrobat and the escapologist decide to go through with the feat because they signed a contract.

During their performance, the escapologist saves his wife from falling into a pool of water with sharp objects. However, her hand eventually slips, and she falls into the pool. Even though she makes it to the hospital and delivers her baby, she becomes too weak and struggles to talk well. Before she dies, she tells the escapologist to take care of their daughter and love her with all his heart. The escapologist agrees to do this, but after his wife dies, he allows his wife’s evil step sister to live with him so she can take care of his daughter.

Unfortunately, she ends up treating her niece badly, but the escapologist has no idea about this. As the story gets intense, Mrs Phelps suggests calling the police to help the escapologist’s daughter, but Matilda says it’s just a story. Mrs Phelps then asks what happens next, but as usual, Matilda says she doesn’t know.

Despite this, Mrs Phelps says she admires Matilda’s mind, and that she’s sure her parents would think they’ve won the lottery with her. Matilda knows this is not true, but she pretends as if her parents are really proud of her. When she gets home, Matilda sees her parents rejoicing about the sale of Mr Wormwood’s illegal luxury car.

Matilda doesn’t support this, and she calls her dad a cheat for eventually selling the car. Mr Wormwood gets pissed by this, and he angrily drags her to her room and throws her on the floor. As he closes the door, the wastebin by the door falls, and Matilda suddenly remembers the ending of her story.

One day, after the escapologist returns from work, he hears his daughter’s cries and goes straight to her room. He then realizes that his wife’s step sister has been maltreating his daughter since she moved in. He immediately apologizes to his daughter and explains that he was so caught up in his grief that he nearly forgot how important she is to him. After he puts her to bed, he remembers everything she has been through, and this gets him more pissed at his wife’s step sister. He then puts his scarf around his daughter’s neck and leaves the house.

As he enters his car and prepares to find his wife’s step sister, he looks really pissed and ends up using his mind to squeeze a bucket on the ground. Shortly after, he leaves the house, but that happens to be the last time his daughter saw him. As Matilda concludes her story, she looks at the wastebin and notices that it is now slightly dented.

She looks shocked by this and starts wondering if she can actually move things with her mind. The next day at school, Matilda gets treated like a hero by the other students because she’s the first person to ever stand up to Trunchbull. Interestingly, Trunchbull hears this from her office and gets pissed.

Shortly after, while Honey is preparing to teach the kids something fun, Trunchbull enters the class and tells her that they’re supposed to crush the students and not make them happy. Honey disagrees with this, but Trunchbull says that they need to break the kids to be able to teach them. Honey doesn’t like this, but there’s nothing she can do when Trunchbull tells the kids to follow her to the field and bring along their gym gear.

She then forces them to do some challenging exercises. As some of the kids struggle to do the exercises well, Honey complains to Trunchbull, but she doesn’t seem to care. Just then, Lavender puts her pet salamander into Trunchbull’s tea. As Trunchbull sees it, she freaks out and accuses an innocent boy of trying to prank her.

The boy pleads his innocence, but Trunchbull still stretches his ear to hurt him. Matilda gets tired of seeing Trunchbull hurting the boy, and she shouts at the headmistress while calling her a bully. Trunchbull gets pissed by this, and she says she’ll crush Matilda. Before she does anything, though, Matilda uses her mind to move the cup containing the salamander to hit Trunchbull. This gets Trunchbull pissed, but as she asks who threw the cup, she realizes that the salamander has crawled into her body.

She freaks out and eventually leaves the field, and Honey also informs the kids that they can return to the class. Before Matilda leaves, she calls Honey and shows her what she can do with her mind. Honey is shocked by this, and as Matilda asks if she’s strange, the teacher suggests that she follows her to have a cup of tea.

Honey then takes Matilda to the small shed where she lives. Matilda thinks the shed is not conducive, and as she mentions that teachers are not paid well, Honey says she’s actually poorer than most. As she then prepares the tea for Matilda, Honey mentions that after her father died, her aunt waited until she got a job before she told her to pay for everything she gave her as a child.

Her wicked aunt also forged a document to claim that Honey’s father gave the house to her. Matilda asks if her dad could really do something like that, but Honey says she has always found it strange. She adds that her aunt even told her that her dad’s death was an accident.

Matilda looks shocked and asks if her aunt killed her dad, but Honey says she can’t say for sure. She then talks about how she found the shed and decided to start living there. She says it might not be the best place to live, but that it’s enough for her.

As she looks sad, she remembers how things were for her as a child, and it turns out that she has a similar experience to the escapologist’s daughter. Shortly after, Honey finds her dad’s old scarf and gives it to Matilda. As Matilda looks at it, she remembers that the escapologist gave his daughter a scarf in her story.

She then asks if Honey’s dad was an escapologist, and Honey looks shocked as she says he was. She adds that her mom was an acrobat, and this makes Matilda realize that she has been narrating Honey’s real childhood story to Mrs Phelps. Matilda then asks who her aunt is, but before Honey responds, she figures out that Trunchbull is the acrobat’s evil step sister.

She gets pissed and leaves the house angrily, but Honey tries to stop her from going to meet Trunchbull because she’s dangerous. Matilda says she doesn’t care, and she mentions that she’s also dangerous. Following this, she heads to the woods outside the school and destroys Trunchbull’s chokey with her mind.

After a while, Matilda gets home and sees her parents packing their things. As she asks what’s wrong, she learns that the person who bought Mr Wormwood’s car has found out what Mr Wormwood did and wants his money back. Mr Wormwood then tells Matilda that they’re leaving the country the next day because he has no money left to refund the gangster who bought the car.

Matilda doesn’t like this because she’ll have to leave Mrs Phelps and everyone at her school behind, but Mr Wormwood tells her to forget about them because she’ll never see them again. Matilda looks sad as she gets to her room, but she knows there’s nothing she can do about the situation. The next day, Matilda heads to school and sees that Trunchbull has crushed the swings on the playground.

She then makes an announcement saying that she’s only retaliating because someone broke something that belongs to her. She also tells the members of Honey’s class to come to the canteen immediately. As they get there, Trunchbull says she believes she’s failing them as a headmistress if she can’t make them break.

She then says that she wants the students to participate in a spelling test, in which all those who can’t spell correctly will be sent to the chokey. Matilda says she can’t do that, but Trunchbull says she can do whatever she wants. She also shows the students the new chokey she just made.

After this, she starts calling the students to spell some words. Surprisingly, the kids do quite well, but Trunchbull doesn’t understand how they’re able to spell the words correctly. One of the students then mentions that Honey teaches them well, but Trunchbull says it’s unlikely because their teacher is too soft. Just then, Trunchbull calls Lavender and gives her a made-up word to spell. Honey says the word is not real, but Trunchbull insists that Lavender must spell it.

As Lavender then makes a mistake, Trunchbull says she’s going to the chokey. Almost immediately, the other students climb their tables and intentionally spell different words wrongly as a way to rebel against Trunchbull. The headmistress looks pissed by this, and she shows them that she has a chokey for all of them.

Before she sends them into each one, Matilda uses her mind to control a chalk to write a message from Honey’s father, telling Trunchbull to return his house to Honey and leave town. Everyone is shocked by this, and Trunchbull wonders if it was truly written by a ghost. As she says it’s probably just a trick because no one can hurt her, Matilda uses her powers to create a monster made of chains to scare Trunchbull and destroy the new chokeys she made.

Matilda eventually ties Trunchbull’s hair and throws her out of the class. Before she lands on the ground, her keys fall out of her pocket, and Honey picks them up. She then tells Trunchbull that the school now belongs to her.

As Trunchbull falls to the ground, Honey tells her to leave, and she does just this. All the kids rejoice after this, but after a while, Mr Wormwood shows up at the school and tells Matilda that they need to leave immediately. Matilda’s classmates tell her not to leave, but she says it’s not up to her. After she then thanks Honey for everything she has done for her, Matilda leaves the school. Before she enters Mr Wormwood’s truck, Honey runs to the gate and asks if Matilda can stay with her.

Mr Wormwood asks if she really wants to keep his daughter, and Honey says she does. Matilda looks shocked that her dad just called her his daughter for the first time, and as he asks if she wants to stay with Honey, she says she does. Mr and Mrs Wormwood then agree to let her stay back, and Matilda shakes hands with her dad.

She also helps him remove the glued hat on his head, and he looks happy about this. After he leaves with his wife, Matilda goes to hug Honey, and they look happy together. Shortly after, they then head to Honey’s childhood home to start cleaning the place after reclaiming it from Trunchbull.

A while later, the school is renovated and renamed The Big Friendly School. The students look happier in Honey’s school, and she also makes the place lovely for them. Much later, Matilda and Honey go for a picnic together, and as they look at the sky, they remember everything that happened and eventually hold hands.

After Matilda is born, she immediately becomes a burden to her parents, who fail to care for her properly. Despite this, Matilda continues being a good and clever girl, and she even uses her wild imagination to come up with a story for Mrs Phelps. Interestingly, the story turns out to be Honey’s actual past, and when Matilda realizes that Trunchbull is Honey’s wicked aunt who maltreated her, she makes up her mind that the headmistress had to be stopped. After Trunchbull gets defeated, Honey offers to take Matilda away from her parents, and she gladly accepts this. This story teaches that standing up to injustice can help make things right, and that true family is found in those who truly care.

Matilda The Muscial 2022.