Matilda remains a love letter to lonely children, to readers who found refuge in books, to queer people searching for acceptance, and to anyone who has ever wondered if there was a place where they could finally belong.
Written by Mariane Tremblay
and Codie Allen
Some films stay with us because of the memories attached to them. Others stay because, somewhere along the way, they become part of our own story. They sit quietly in our lives, waiting for us to return years later and realize that the film we loved as children was saying something much deeper than we understood at the time. Matilda (1996) is one of those rare films.
Based on Roald Dahl's 1988 novel of the same name, Matilda was released on August 2, 1996. The film follows Matilda Wormwood (Mara Wilson), an exceptionally bright little girl whose intelligence and curiosity are constantly overlooked by her neglectful parents, Harry (Danny DeVito) and Zinnia (Rhea Perlman). When she finally starts school, she finds comfort in her kind-hearted teacher, Miss Honey (Embeth Davidtz), and the friends she makes along the way. But she's also forced to endure the terrifying rule of the cruel headmistress Miss Trunchbull (Pam Ferris). As the adults around her continue to mistreat her, Matilda discovers she possesses extraordinary powers — ones she might just use to stand up for herself and outsmart those who underestimate her.
Thirty years after its release, it remains easy to remember the magic: a young girl with extraordinary abilities, love for books, a world of endless imagination, and the joy of watching kindness triumph over cruelty. But beneath the telekinesis, the chocolate cake, and the larger-than-life villains, Matilda has always been about something more profound.
I watched Matilda so many times growing up that I can't even recount the exact number of viewings. Although my Letterboxd would tell you it's been ten times since 2021 alone. It was one of my favourite films when I was younger, and it still is to this day. Like so many people my age, or slightly older, this film will always hold a special place in my heart. And that's not even mentioning its importance to me (and many others) as a queer woman.
As children, Matilda's abilities were what captured our imagination. We dreamt of standing up to bullies and taking control of a world that often feels unfair. But revisiting Matilda as an adult reveals that her greatest power was never the ability to move objects with her mind. It was her refusal to let the people around her convince her that she was insignificant.
DeVito's movie is also about the value of education, the love of reading, and the realization that adults aren't always right. Matilda grew up in a home where everything that makes her unique was treated as a flaw. Her intelligence was dismissed, her curiosity mocked, and her love of reading seen as something strange rather than something beautiful. Yet she never allowed their inability to see her become the truth about who she is. She kept reading. She kept learning. She kept imagining a life beyond the one she was given. Matilda reminds us that being an adult does not automatically make someone wise, just as being a child does not make someone incapable of understanding the world around them. And that resilience is where the true magic of Matilda has always existed.
Danny DeVito understood something fundamental about childhood: monsters do not always look like monsters. Sometimes they are the people who laugh at your dreams. Sometimes they are the people who convince you that the very things that make you different are weaknesses. Matilda refuses to accept that message. Instead, it reminds us that our curiosity, imagination, and individuality are worth protecting.
And then there is Miss Honey.
It's hardly a revelation at this point; even Embeth Davidtz is very well aware of it, but Matilda has had a huge impact on the LGBTQ+ community over the past 30 years. Despite having no intentional queer significance or explicitly queer storyline, the film has resonated deeply with countless people in the community, each finding something different that drew them to it. I genuinely believe it has cemented itself as a generational queer awakening film — one that will continue to be passed down for years to come.
I'm not entirely sure what it is exactly; I think it's a mix of everything coming together, and I obviously can't speak for everyone, but I do know that, for the past 30 years, a queer woman has been born every time someone has pressed play on DeVito's film. Some might say it's because of "mommy issues," as it's also no secret that there's a perceived correlation between queer women, their relationships with their mothers, and the women they develop crushes on. Of course, this doesn't apply to everyone, but many queer women have spoken about difficult relationships with their mothers and how that shaped the kinds of women they were drawn to later in life. That's not to say every queer woman who's attracted to older women has a distant relationship with her mother, but, you know.
Others might argue it's because of the teacher-student dynamic (which, admittedly, isn't entirely unrelated to the "mommy issues" discourse). Every queer woman I know has had a crush on at least one teacher growing up — bonus points if she taught English. Those two tropes are deeply embedded in queer internet culture, and I think they resonate with anyone who's part of the community or has spent enough time around it. But I also believe there's more to it than that. After all, most of us were introduced to Matilda as children. And at that age, what do we even know about "mommy issues"?
There's something about Embeth Davidtz's portrayal of Jennifer Honey (yes, her first name is Jennifer) that's incredibly endearing. She is genuinely one of the sweetest characters ever put on screen and, to me, one of the most beautiful. Although, to be fair, Davidtz is simply one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen, generally speaking. It's no surprise that every child, both on and off screen, adored her. Miss Honey is kind, gentle, intelligent, soft-spoken, and endlessly compassionate, dedicating her life to the well-being of the children she teaches. After thirty years, Miss Honey remains one of the most beloved figures in family cinema because she represents something so many people long for: safety. She is not memorable because she is perfect. She is memorable because she is wounded. Beneath her kindness is someone carrying years of fear, insecurity, and pain, yet she refuses to let that pain define her. Miss Honey understands Matilda because, in many ways, she once was that little girl. She knows what it feels like to have your voice taken away and to live under someone else's control. Their relationship is powerful because it is not simply about a teacher rescuing a child. It is about two lonely people recognizing themselves in one another and offering the acceptance they have both been missing.
That relationship has resonated deeply with generations of queer viewers. Long before many of us had the language to describe why we felt different, Matilda understood what it meant to grow up feeling out of place. It understood the loneliness of existing in a home where the people around you cannot — or will not — see who you truly are. While the film is not explicitly queer, its emotional core has always spoken to experiences that many LGBTQ+ people recognize: the search for acceptance, the fear of rejection, and the hope that somewhere beyond the family you were born into, there are people who will love you exactly as you are.
And over the years, the "Miss Honey crush" has become almost universal among queer women, although many of us only realized it years after first watching the film. Widely recognized as "the first lesbian crush," it has evolved into an online meme that brought generations of queer women together through a shared experience. It became a kind of collective identity marker — one that Davidtz herself has acknowledged multiple times on social media. This character truly put words to feelings many of us were experiencing while growing up and helped shape so many of us into the queer women we are today. Miss Honey became a symbol of hope. She represented a world where kindness was valued, sensitivity was a strength, and being different was never something that needed to be corrected. For many queer audiences, she was the first adult in a film who felt genuinely safe.
And that is why the movie ending remains so moving. Matilda is not saved because she changes who she is. She is saved because she finally finds someone who sees her, believes in her, and chooses her. It is a reminder that family is not always defined by biology. Sometimes it is built through compassion, understanding, and unconditional love.
Ultimately, that is what makes Matilda endure. Its emotional center has never truly been the battle between Matilda and Miss Trunchbull. Those moments are unforgettable, but they are not why audiences continue returning to the film three decades later. What stays with us is the simple act of someone believing in a child who has spent her entire life being overlooked.
What seemed like a sweet, light-hearted family film slowly revealed itself as something much more meaningful, and found an audience way beyond the one it was meant for. But maybe that's the beauty of cinema: you never know which stories are going to find a special place in people's hearts, and become something much more personal than anyone could have imagined.
Thirty years later, Matilda feels less like a film we grew out of and more like one we finally grew into. As children, we wanted Matilda's magic. As adults, we understand that the true miracle was never the telekinesis. It was kindness. It was compassion. It was the rare and beautiful experience of someone looking at you and saying, "I see you."
Matilda remains a love letter to lonely children, to readers who found refuge in books, to queer people searching for acceptance, and to anyone who has ever wondered if there was a place where they could finally belong. Some stories entertain us for a season. Others quietly remind us that we deserve to be loved exactly as we are. Matilda has always been one of those stories.
Matilda is streaming on Netflix (U.S)
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