One of the most difficult milestones on the road to maturity is the awful realization that bad things happen to good people. Often without warning or reason, evil can triumph over good. This sad fact of life is revealed with dark humor and twisted charm in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.

The most striking feature of this movie not Jim Carrey’s trademark over-the-top performance, but the compellingly foreboding atmosphere. The visual world of the Baudelaire Orphans is both dreary and fantastic, and serves to underscore the rather subdued performances of the child actors. It is through the set design and the cinematography that we feel their fear and wonder, as the film works its glorious magic.

I suppose it’s inevitable that this new franchise will be compared to the Harry Potter films, but Lemony Snicket teaches us a much more complex and valuable lesson: In an cold, uncaring world, all we can truly count on is those we love.