‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ is a delectable slice of nostalgia

Tim Burton is back in the director’s chair with one of his most iconic characters: Beetlejuice. The new film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice throws us back into the Neitherworld and brings Michael Keaton back as the Juice. But it is more than just a healthy dose of wistfulness.

Astrid (Jenna Ortega) is the daughter of Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder). Sent off to a fancy boarding school, she refers to her mother as someone who just birthed her. Meaning they do not have the closest relationship. But when Lydia’s father Charles (Jeffrey Jones) dies, Lydia, her stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara), and Astrid must all make the Deetz family’s grand return to Winter River.

With all the green and purple of the Neitherworld mixed with the darkness that Lydia Deetz, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is more emotionally driven than the original film was. Not that the 1998 movie didn’t have heart, it was all about a girl coping with the divorce of her parents and not having her mother with her. (In the musical, Lydia’s mother is dead but that isn’t the case with Beetlejuice.)

All that being said, it felt very teenager. Which I loved growing up. With Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the stakes are just a little bit higher. Astrid lost her father, her mother is maybe remarrying with Rory (Justin Theroux), who only cares about the show Lydia hosts, and then her grandfather passed away. It leaves her as a justifiably angry teenage girl in a town she doesn’t want to be in.

Her storyline, for me, was the saving grace of the film.

Astrid’s story

As a member of the “dead dad club,” stories about grief intrigue me. Often, people either are weeping in their grief for years on end or they easily move on and do not mention their pain. I don’t find those stories relatable, personally, but that’s the funny thing about grief: Other people will. What I found relatable was how Astrid dealt with the death of her father.

It wasn’t all-consuming but it was always there. She’d make quips and use her dark humor as a shield. That is how I dealt with my own father’s passing and I just found it refreshing to see a young girl coping with her grief in a less-than-perfect way. She’s making bad choices and lashing out and she has every right to do so.

Keaton and Ryder are perfection

We go to Tim Burton’s films for the aesthetic, sure. But more than that, we love them for their characters. I think the bushes in Edward Scissorhands are cute but I didn’t watch that movie 20 times as a teenager because of that. It was because of Kim and Edward. Beetlejuice is the same. Yes, we love the iconic white and black suit or how Bob looks. We all wanted Lydia’s red wedding dress at some point. But none of that matters if we didn’t care about Lydia’s journey with the Maitlands and their quest to put Beetlejuice back in the Neitherworld.

The minute that Keaton returned as Beetlejuice, I felt like a kid again. I just wanted to cheer the entire time because that’s how I felt the first time I met Beetlejuice. “It’s showtime” is the most accurate catchphrase for Beetlejuice because from start to finish, you never know what outrageous thing he’s going to do next.

And it was made all that much sweeter by having Ryder back as Lydia. Ryder was an icon growing up, as she was many other emo girls. Her Lydia was legendary and I don’t think there was a world where this franchise works without her. This updated take on Lydia is someone who has lost but still is trying to be a good mother and a good person and it is so cool to see Ryder let a character grow and change from that moody teenager to a struggling mom.

A Tim Burton musical number for the ages

If you know anything about a Burton movie, you know the score is perfection. And then the next thing you know is that there will probably be a strange dance number and that’s fine. The first movie had “Day-O” in one of the most iconic moments in cinematic history. This time around? We get to sit through all of “MacArthur Park” and I could not have been happier.

The song has always been a mystery to me (why was the cake left out in the rain??) and to see it used in this context was truly so fun and really what Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was all about. At the end of the day, it is the chaos of the Neitherworld once again. But this time, we had a little more heart to the story and I loved it.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is in theaters on September 6.