Wonka

By Joanna Langfield

Sufficiently sweet, I still found this Wonka a little wonky.

Director Paul King, whose Paddington pictures delighted me to happy tears, goes for broke on this, an origins story starring the seemingly ubiquitous Timothee Chalamet. And perhaps it’s that, the insistent, and constant bigness of it all that, for me, feels off. What could have been a confection, a charming and poignant telling of a not so nice story, is big, bold and loud. People who love that kind of thing will love this. But I, who likes my chocolate a bit bittersweet, wish the whole thing was a little less sugary.

Drawn from the classic Dahl novel, this chapter looks at Willy’s early days in London, when he was more like Oliver Twist than the offbeat adult candyman brought to life previously by Gene Wilder and, later, Johnny Depp. As it so often happens in Dahl’s work, and in so many other children’s books, our hero is faced with some truly sobering obstacles. Destitute, this Wonka winds up essentially imprisoned, along with others who are forced into labor to secure a roof over their heads. While King flirts with the seriousness of it all, he tips the scales toward the glossy, feel good. This is, after all, a family film. And, honestly, who couldn’t use a little feel good these days. There are big, fancy musical numbers, some of which work better than others, due to some game co-stars (Olivia Coleman, Sally Hawkins, Keegan-Michael Key, Hugh Grant and a particularly impressive Calah Lane), an uneven set of songs and the tentative singing voice of its otherwise lithe and lovely star.

It’s been quite a year for Dahl. For me, the West Anderson Netflix adaptations are far more interesting. But these two works are aiming for very different audiences. And doesn’t that reflect well on a writer whose work can be so inspiring?