Genre:
Children's/Family
Release Date: 08/17/2007
Dubbed: English/French
E.B. White's classic
children's story comes to the screen in this live-action adaptation with an all-star voice cast.
Fern Arable (
Dakota Fanning) is a young girl growing up on her family's farm. When a sow gives birth to some piglets,
Fern's father (
Kevin Anderson) intends to do away with the runt of litter, but
Fern has become attached to the little pig and persuades her father to let him live. The pig, named
Wilbur (voice of
Dominic Scott Kay), becomes
Fern's pet, but when he grows larger, he's put in the care of
Homer Zuckerman (
Gary Basaraba), a farmer down the road.
Fern is still able to visit
Wilbur regularly, and it soon occurs to both of them that pigs tend to have a limited life expectancy on a farm, and that unless something unusual happens,
Wilbur will eventually becomes someone's dinner.
Charlotte, a friendly spider, hatches a plan to make
Wilbur seem special enough to save by weaving messages about the "terrific" pig into her web, and she soon persuades her barnyard friends to join in her plan.
Charlotte is voiced by
Julia Roberts, while the other actors who provide the voices of the animals on
Zuckerman's farm include
Robert Redford,
John Cleese,
Oprah Winfrey,
Steve Buscemi,
Kathy Bates,
Cedric the Entertainer.
Thomas Haden Church, and
André Benjamin.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
