I read these stories in the early eighties as a child, and they have never left my consciousness. They're gripping, sinister, disturbing and yet also greatly uplifting. You never forget having read Dahl's work, especially the more adult work. It's uniquely compelling, beautifully written stuff and should rightfully take its place amongst the established greats of twentieth century literature.

They transferred passably well to television in the 1980's as Tales of the Unexpected in a very straight up and slightly cliched manner. However, Wes Anderson's adaptations are superb. They take all the language, style, wit and intelligence of Dahl's writing and combine it with his own wit, style, intelligence and visual language. The amalgamation is deeply entertaining, intellectually fulfilling and wholly satisfying. As befits Dahl's stories, the film is unusual in the telling and quite unsettling. I can understand why some might find it difficult, it's better for it. I absolutely love this.

Watched this with friends and we think none of us is familiar with Wes' or Dahl's works so far. Maybe because of that we simply don't understand what's going on in this movie.

Scene transitions are very interesting and the yogi part was interesting too, as well as this subtle way of actors comedically interacting with/talking to each but besides that?

What's the point of each story or the movie in general? None of the stories made sense to us, at best the 1st one with "the man who can see with closed eyes" had an interesting touch, but what started out great took a quick downhill tour for me and friends.

Usually, when watching movies with friends, we take pauses for usual things, such as going to the toilet, getting something to drink/snack, etc. It was pretty much impossible in this movie to pause in a suitable moment. Why? Because of the almost non-stop talking that overwhelmed us.

And as if that wasn't enough for us there are things happening on screen that are attention drawing because of either interesting elements (eg scene transitions) or confusing elements (eg yogi goes to sit on a box that disappears below him like it's normal, or in the rat story where actors talk about things they don't hold in their hands, acting like they are actually holding them, while, later on they suddenly have something in their hands.).

One reviewer here wrote the stories are like bed time stories. I absolutely agree but also have to disagree because bed time stories have a clear ending or a "moral of the story". For me and friends there was no such ending in either of the stories, sadly. And also sadly, we all agreed that this movie was a big waste of our time.

Like I said in the beginning, we might not have been familiar with the works of director and writer and maybe this is a movie that wants to carry out a unique and new art style only, but as sad as it is, it didn't click for us in any way other than being left with confusion and lack of understanding.