Chapter twenty-five: Lemony Snicket's: A Series of Unfortunate Events

Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are three gifted children coming into a large inheritance after their parents have died in a house fire. Violet is a fourteen-year-old inventor, Klaus is a bookworm who is a year or two younger than Violet, and Sunny, still a toddler, has a talent for biting things. Upon discovery of their parents the children are sent to live with their closest relative, Count Olaf (Jim Carrey.) The Count is either their third cousin four times removed or their fourth cousin three times removed. Needless to say, the children have no idea who he is, but they are to live with him anyway.

Count Olaf is a despicable man living in an extremely filthy, unkempt house, who makes the children perform hours of laborious chores each day. He has no interest in actually taking care of the children, and is only claiming guardianship so that he can have control of the Baudelaire fortune. Once Count Olaf learns that he won't get a cent of the money until Violet turns eighteen unless something happens to the children, he takes it upon himself to ensure that something happens to them. His plan is to leave them in a locked car on the train tracks but Violet outsmarts The Count with one of her inventions, and once the orphanage finds out about this incident, the children are out of Count Olaf's custody and are now sent to live with their Uncle Monty, whom they also have never met. (Played by Billy Connolly.)

Uncle Monty is a reptile enthusiast and a cheerful, jolly man, set to make his way to Peru in the morning with the children on account of his scientific studies. The children feel content as though they have found home again with Uncle Monty, but Count Olaf has a plan in mind that dampens their hope. He has shown up to the home disguised as Uncle Monty's new science partner. The Baudelaires are not fooled by the act, but Uncle Monty gives in. The next morning, Uncle Monty is found dead by what appears to be a snake bite, but is actually the own doing of his "partner." The Count runs away to avoid criminal charges, and the Baudelaires are now sent to live with their Aunt Josephine, another person whom they don't know.

Aunt Josephine (Meryl) has come into the picture. (Finally :) Aunt Josephine is a ditzy older, very cautious woman with plenty of irrational fears like realtors, hot food, and such. Soon after entering her home, Aunt Josephine shows the children around the place and looks at photo albums with them. The Baudelaires learn that she lives on Lake Lachrymose and has lived there all her life. Her husband Ike died after he was eaten by the lake's leeches, but she refuses to sell the house, because, well, realtors. Aunt Josephine also loves and appreciates proper grammar. But, perhaps the most interesting thing she shows the children is a picture of her, Ike, Uncle Monty, and The Baudelaire parents all together with spyglasses. Aunt Josephine snaps the picture away before the children can ask questions.

In the market that night while shopping for dinner, Count Olaf reappears dressed as a sailor and is able to woo Aunt Josephine, and coax her into inviting him over for dinner, against the wishes of the children. While the Baudelaires stay and continue to shop, Aunt Josephine takes the sailor back home where he forces her to write a note granting Count Olaf custody of the children, and then attempts to kill her by throwing her out of the window into the lake. But, he is outsmarted yet again, because Aunt Josephine made grammatical errors in the note which spelled out the name of the place where she was hiding. Klaus is able to figure this out, and the children sail their way to Curdled Cave through a thunderstorm.

Aunt Josephine is waiting for them, thrilled that they have figured out her clue. She is convinced that she will have to spend the rest of her life in Curdled Cave and is mentally prepared to do so, but the children want her to go back with them because she's the only one who can vouch for their stories and explain how evil Count Olaf really is. Aunt Josephine has her mind set out staying to live in the cave until Klaus reminds her that the place is up for sale which means she'll have to make contact with realtors. With that, everyone heads back to town. On their way, Klaus pulls a sketch out from his pocket, which he got from Ike's office. He asks Aunt Josephine what it is. The drawing is of a window in the shape of an eye. She says,

"Your parents knew the answer to that. They were our leaders."

It looks like the kids may finally get some information, but it is a short-lived victory, because their boat is attacked by leeches. The only rescue boat in sight is Count Olaf's and he shows no mercy to Aunt Josephine. He's only in it for the children's fortune.

To round out the many guardians these children have had, they are now, once again, in the custody of Count Olaf who has made arrangements to marry Violet in a play he has written, but they will be married by a real judge, which makes the marriage real by law. Thus, he will then have access to the fortune. It seems as though this is the plan the children won't find a way out of, because if Violet refuses to marry Count Olaf, then Sunny will be the one in danger. But, that still leaves Klaus. He forces himself to think like Violet would, and he rescues Sunny from a sky-high building. In the same sky-high building, Klaus uses sunlight and the eye-shaped magnified window to burn the marriage certificate of Violet and Count Olaf. When the audience realizes the play is reality, The Count is taken to prison, and the children are free from his wrath.

With their newfound freedom, the children travel back to the ashes of their parents home, where they find that a piece of mail has been left for them. It's a letter, written by their parents, dating all the way back to their trip to Europe that got lost in the mail. The letter explains all the interesting sorts of people their parents have met in Europe. The letter also states,

"As long as you have each other, you have your family, and you are home."

In company with the paper, there is a spyglass inside the envelope as well, which symbolizes the passing of the torch.

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The movie is based off of a series of children's books by Daniel Handler, whose pen name is Lemony Snickett. Each guardian that the Baudelaire children had was a different book in the series, and the movie put all of them together, hence the title, A series of Unfortunate Events. I like the movie. It's quite mysterious and it, of course, showcases children, so in those respects it's resembles Roald Dahl if you will. It's not my favorite movie, but I had to rewatch it in order to write this blog post correctly and I'm glad I did.

As always, thank you for the entertainment Meryl.