Timothée Chalamet in “Wonka.”
Jaap Buittendijk
They know that “Wonka” has no right to exist. You saw the trailer and moaned loudly. You said to the person next to you, “Seriously? “Wonka?” You didn’t ask about this movie. Nobody asked about it. But here is “Wonka” now, and we all have to reckon with it.
If you are blissfully unaware of this, allow me to pierce your innocence. In its never-ending quest to milk the IP teat until it's red and raw, Warner Bros. has decided to make an original film about Willy Wonka, the imaginative chocolatier from Roald Dahl's beloved “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” They hired “Harry Potter” producer David Heyman to give the film a light-hearted theme park feel. They hired “Paddington” director Paul King to give the film some emotional weight. And they cast Timothée Chalamet in a title role once played brilliantly by Gene Wilder (and another time by Johnny Depp, in one of Depp's “let's give my character a good prank” nonsense fits).
They also turned this origin story into a musical, which I didn't realize until I was already in my seat and couldn't escape.
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The good news is that “Wonka” is a perfectly acceptable family comedy in its own right. Young Willy is a talented confectioner who travels from unknown parts to England to open a candy shop. There he comes into the sights of the sugar daddy mafia that already dominates the city and teams up with some of his new friends and a CGI giraffe to hunt them down. All very easy to swallow. I took my 17-year-old to see Wonka because she was stressed about college admissions, and as she walked back to the car she spontaneously said, “Well, I wasn't bored.” Surprisingly, neither was I .
I also wasn't upset with this movie, which is really the most important thing. The songs here are bad, but I think that's a huge advantage because they didn't get stuck in my head. Chalamet is terribly miscast, but he'll be damned if he doesn't give it his best shot. Keegan-Michael Key shows up to do a series of fat suit gags, which are actually pretty funny because he's playing a dirty cop. King also cast fellow British party member Rowan Atkinson – aka Mr. Bean – as a naughty priest. And I like Atkinson every time I see him. What if they had made a movie where Mr. Bean was Willy Wonka? I wish they had, but instead they made this completely tolerable, completely unnecessary movie instead… a movie whose taste disappears seconds after you stop consuming it.
Timothée Chalamet in “Wonka.”
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Because “Wonka” is pleasantly entertaining, but also toothless. If you saw the original 1971 adaptation of this book, you remember Wilder's Wonka as a trickster god: a temperamental man who uses his confectionery to punish any spoiled children who won a ticket to visit his factory. Wilder's Wonka doesn't even seem to like children until he meets the destitute Charlie Bucket and decides: Okay, I think this Bucket kid is doing well. There is no explanation as to why Wonka is so distant. There's no backstory about how or why he became a chocolate baron, or why he turned his factory into a death trap, or what the hell is up with the Oompa-Loompas who run his factory. All of this remains a mystery, and that's what makes the story interesting.
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As you may have guessed, “Wonka” puts all that mystery to rest. King doesn't give the title character any sort of menace, instead making him a man who wants to make chocolate in the hopes that it will bring back his dead mother. This stunted Wonka is as stubbornly cheerful as Leslie Knope, and lacks the underlying sadism that made Wilder's Wonka such an icon (and, unfortunately, an endlessly used meme). This guy might as well be the sidekick in a classic CGI-animated children's movie. He's just a nice guy who likes kids and wants to make people happy. This, in a predictable irony, ruins the magic of a character who can make candies that give you the power of flight.
Scenes from “Wonka”. Jaap Buittendijk, courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures. Scenes from “Wonka.” Jaap Buittendijk, courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Again, you probably knew this was all coming because you're used to annoying origin stories by now. Thanks to Hollywood's search of the ocean floor for ideas, you've learned about the humble beginnings of Anakin Skywalker, Maleficent, Spider-Man, Superman, Cruella de Vil, the Wizard of Oz, Spider-Man again, the Wicked Witch of the West and Tony Soprano, Iron Man, Batman, Batman's butler, the Joker, Buzz Lightyear, another Spider-Man and the damn Grinch. At best, these films were entertaining fan service. At worst, they've left a stain on their source material that your memory can't wash off.
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Calah Lane as Noodle and Timothée Chalamet as Willy Wonka in “Wonka.”
Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
The best origin stories like The Godfather aren't origin stories at all. These are introductions, not loose prequel material. And the best characters in television and film history—Logan Roy, Heath Ledger's Joker, Travis Bickle—are fascinating precisely because we know nothing about them. It's the lack of an origin story that draws you in and makes you want to know why these people are the way they are and why they do the things they do. Actually TELL the audience why this will, in most cases, ruin the biography you've created for them in your imagination.
Because the best stories are not one-sided floods of information, but rather those that arouse curiosity. You don't answer every question because then your imagination would have nothing to play with. If I know why Hannibal Lecter kills and eats people – and don't worry, there's a movie that explains it too – then I'm not so afraid of him. If you refuse to tell me why, I will become even more determined to find out for myself. Few origin stories, except perhaps “Casino Royale,” understand this dynamic.
Timothée Chalamet at the Paris premiere of “Wonka.”
Olivier Borde
Certainly not “Wonka.” It's a film that tells its audience, “You all love the Chocolate Man, right?” What if we told you he was always a real sweetheart?' I don't want Willy Wonka to be a sweetheart. I don't want to know where he came from or why he made a piece of gum that makes you blow up like a balloon. I just want him to be a rich, eccentric weirdo. After all, as far as I know, there is no life that can be compared to pure fantasy.
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