The reason for Olaf’s despicable behavior is that he wants the Baudelaire family fortune, and is willing to do anything, including eating stale Pasta Putanesca and placing the children on train tracks in the face of an oncoming train, to get it.  When that fails, the children are taken to live with their eccentric (a word meaning, someone completely obsessed with snakes) Uncle Monty (Billy Connolly).  But Olaf disguises himself and finishes off the herpetological relative, much to the children’s horror.  Fortunately, their quick wit – and Sunny’s willingness to play with a python – saves them from being returned to Olaf’s care.

They go to live with their Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep), a lovely widow with great affection for children, but who is afraid of most everything one could possibly imagine.  Josephine does not venture near her refrigerator, for fear that it will fall on her.  Nor does she eat avocadoes (the pit might stick in her throat) or use her doorknobs, which could explode at any moment.  That she lives in a rickety house perched precariously over a lake full of the same leeches that killed her husband seems to miss the poor woman entirely – unlike perfect grammar, Josephine’s specialty.  But Count Olaf manages to insert himself into their lives yet again, and it does not bode well at all for their grammatically-correct aunt.

At his wit’s end, Olaf attempts to marry Violet by kidnapping Sunny and locking her in a cage that hangs several stories high.  To carry out his plan, he stages a theatrical performance – his real love, after money, despite the fact that he is a most horrific actor.  But yet again, the children prevail.

This last story happens to be the first one in the book, for those who care about such things, and some of the other stories are cut short or even omitted.  But this rearranging of the narrative of the first three books (upon which the film is based), is a rather petty detail.  Rest assured that the film adheres quite strictly to not only the various plots, the tone and the magnificent characterization of the books, but also makes use of their excellent employ of the English language, which teaches children difficult words like persnickety and puerile.  The acting was, quite unanimously, inspired (Carrey is very, very good, as are Streep and the children), and was only topped by the most excellent sets and costumes (both of which are a combination of Victorian and Gothic).  Children – those who love dark tales, that is – will be most delighted, as was this reviewer.  It is quite the clever film, and it is not surprising that the 11 books in the series were not only the first to knock “Harry Potter” off the top of the New York Times children’s bestseller list, but have also remained there for more than 600 weeks combined, having sold more than 27 million copies worldwide.  Author Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) must be very wealthy – er, happy – indeed.