Reynie, Sticky, Kate, and Constance infiltrate the school in order to report back to Benedict with information that may be helpful in stopping the wicked designs of the Institute’s unknown leader. The children must even use Morse Code as part of their mission to expose “The Emergency,” which we quickly discover is coming from The Institute, a school for gifted children. There are no cell phones or personal computers.
It feels like the past, but not any real past and the characters, plot, and overall aesthetic convey the same humane analog reality present in most of the films of Wes Anderson. The Mysterious Benedict Society takes place in a mechanical rather than digital world, with welcome echoes of Roald Dahl, Madeleine L’Engle, and Lemony Snicket. He says, “There is a place where truth matters, even if most people don’t pay attention to it.” In either an uncanny coincidence of names or an unacknowledged common source in the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, The Mysterious Benedict Society evokes something like the “Benedict Option,” the prescription for renewing civilization that Rod Dreher describes in his well-known 2017 book.
Like a loving father, Benedict is noncoercive and noncompetitive to a fault, creating a refuge from the world’s manipulations. He lives in a remote, beautifully wooded landscape, surrounded by books, drinking tea and eating earthy meals with his eccentric associates, including the superb Kristen Schaal as Number Two. Benedict, who finds the four children and prepares them for a special mission, telling them, “You all possess a quality that is lacking in our society.” Benedict is a kindly, rumpled intellectual-an orphan himself who seeks to save the world from “the Emergency,” a mind-control campaign being waged through subliminal messages in the media. Tony Hale produces the show and stars as the mysterious Mr. Young George “Sticky” Washington has a photographic memory Kate Wetherall has endless practical knowledge and physical prowess and Constance Contraire, played by the hilarious young Russian actress Marta Kessler, appears to be telepathic.
Based on the book series by the Arkansas novelist Trenton Lee Stewart, The Mysterious Benedict Society places children at a level of importance rivaling Jesus’ words in Matthew’s Gospel: “Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” The children who make up the mysterious society are four brilliant and talented orphans, led by Reynie Muldoon, who is played by Mystic Inscho. The Mysterious Benedict Society, now airing on Disney+, is a refreshingly subversive adventure story. Home › Articles › Institute Fellows › The Mysterious Benedict Society: A Subversive Tale for the Times
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