Wonka
“Candy need not have a point. That’s why it’s candy,” said little Charlie Bucket in 2005’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Paul King’s prequel “Wonka,” a frothy two hour musical comedy, illustrates that idea. Inspired by Roald Dahl’s Wonka books but not bound to them, the movie wants to tug at a few sentimental heartstrings but mostly aims to entertain, delight and elicit cheers when the bad guys are vanquished. The performances, costumes, songs and choreography are probably better than they needed to be in order to turn this into a hit which is, as studio executives like to say, a pre-sold property (who doesn’t know and love Willy Wonka?).
It’s all formulaic, of course proudly so, with self-referential jokes and outrageous puns too numerous to bear if they weren’t so ingratiating. King, his co-writer Simon Farnaby and their collaborators get the tone exactly right from the start and never lose hold of it or its pacing for that matter, although there are satirical or metaphorical touches that aren’t hard to spot if you’re looking for them (they involve exploitation of labor), they’re tossed off with an insouciant air sometimes literally in sight gags so as not to overseason the candy until it overwhelms the sugar.
The other main character is plucky orphan Noodle (Calah Lane), Wonka’s best friend and fellow adventurer. (She also narrates in flashback.) Mama Wonka is even shown making her last chocolate bar before she leaves newborn Willy behind under a tree stump while she invents herself in the jungle; he keeps it on his person at all times as an adult chocolatier when he needs inspiration. The main villains are three all-powerful businessmen Paterson Joseph’s Slugworth, Matt Lucas’s Prodnose and Matthew Banton’s Fickelgruber who control the candy manufacturing and distribution, keep the city’s corrupt police force under their thumbs (including Keegan Michael Key as the chocoholic chief of police) and have passed laws that make it virtually impossible for anyone else to enter the business.
It’s a variation on an old rags to riches template. Young Wonka comes to the big city with only a box of chocolates in his hand. The greedy beat the needy every time, another character says.
The script illustrates that from its opening musical sequence: traveling on a bus to Candyfloss City, our hero spends all 12 of his sovereigns on legally mandatory expenses such as a fine for dreaming. He falls into the hands of seemingly kindhearted local innkeeper Mrs. Scrubbit (Olivia Colman) and her hulking, bass voiced right-hand man Bleacher (Tom Davis), only belatedly realizing that when he signed in at Hotel Astor, he agreed by default to pay his bill with his own labor if necessary and everything he does adds new charges to the bottom line, including walking upstairs to his room.
These are not the only absurdities in “Wonka.” The Wizard of Oz himself is one. As played by Michael Caine (a great choice for a character who’s simultaneously a con man and an addict), he’s an Englishman who’s turned himself into a green-skinned, pointy-eared alien with silver eyes and sharp teeth. But there’s also the minor detail that the movie makes no sense at all. It begins with Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet) as a poor kid in London during World War II, whose mother (Olivia Colman) gives him a bar of chocolate and tells him it will make him happy. Then she dies in an air raid while he’s eating it, so he decides to become a chocolatier.
There is practically no Dahlish tendency, which equates beauty norms with morality and views odd physicality as ugly; except for making the police commissioner gain weight from eating too many bribes in form of chocolates.
The city that Wonka takes over is like London, kind of like Paris, with bits and pieces from other places. But it’s an old/new city in a fantasy or sci-fi movie, a storybook or graphic novel like the ones in “The French Dispatch,” “Amelie” or “Moulin Rouge.” Most of the performances are exceptional (Colman and Grant are standouts as always), although the script leaves some actors in the laundry room by not fleshing out their stories enough.
Another (frankly puzzling) shortcoming is the cinematography, which has this beautiful silvery look in flashbacks and certain daylight scenes, but at night and in dim locales looks washed-out and indifferently composed “Netflix original” level. (Is this the result of reshoots?) Say what you will about Tim Burton’s 2005 Wonka film; it looked great top to bottom, every composition popped.
Music wise: writing this piece I can’t hum or quote any of the new songs. But I remember enjoying them while they were happening particularly the one during the first sequence when Wonka gets separated from his money. Hits from the 1971 adaptation are reprised here (notably the Oompa Loompa song and “Pure Imagination,” also quoted in Joby Talbot’s score), no doubt because we expect them. They may act as Pavlovian tear-triggers for older-generation viewers. This is, of course, exactly what “intellectual property”-driven productions like this live for. The approach isn’t vastly different from yet another Batman movie, or a Disney prequel like “Cruella.” (The cop corruption stuff is similar to “The Batman.”)
But most of all, “Wonka” is so good at being itself that whether it’s a cynical enterprise becomes moot. It’s as enthusiastic yet inscrutable as Wonka himself, played with an elegantly withholding quality by Chalamet, who in moments of quiet contemplation and madcap inspiration could be Gene Wilder’s long-lost grandchild. “Candy doesn’t have to have a point. That’s why it’s candy.”
That’s what little Charlie Bucket said while visiting Willy Wonka’s candy-world in 2005’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Paul King’s prequel “Wonka” illustrates that notion in a breezy two-hour musical comedy. Inspired by Roald Dahl’s Wonka books but not strictly faithful to them it hopes to make you shed a sentimental tear or two, but is mainly content to amuse, delight and inspire cheers when the bad guys are defeated. The performances, costumes, songs and choreography are probably better than they needed to be for this project to succeed commercially, this is an executive-suite pre-sold property (who doesn’t know and love Willy Wonka?).
It’s all formulaic, of course proudly so, with self referential jokes and outrageous puns so frequent that they’d be unbearable if they weren’t charming. King, his co-writer Simon Farnaby and their collaborators get the tone exactly right from the very beginning and never lose control of it, or the pacing for that matter; although there are satirical or metaphorical touches that aren’t too hard to see if you’re looking for them, they’re presented with a throwaway sensibility, often as sight gags, so as not to salt the candy so much that you can’t taste the sweetness.
Wonka (Timothee Chalamet) and the movie’s other main character Noodle (Calah Lane), who becomes his best friend/partner in adventure she flips back-and-forth between being resourceful or sassy orphans; it varies depending on which part of the movie she’s in.
Wonka also carries the last chocolate bar his mother made, a sweet maker who raised him in the jungle, and he gazes at it for inspiration. (Mama Wonka is played in flashbacks by Sally Hawkins, a good luck charm for big-budget fantasies.) The main villains are three all powerful businessmen (Paterson Joseph’s Slugworth, Matt Lucas’ Prodnose, and Matthew Banton’s Fickelgruber) who control candy manufacturing and distribution; corrupt the city’s police force (including Keegan Michael Key as the chocoholic chief of police), and have passed laws that make it nearly impossible for anyone else to break into the industry. The basic story of young Wonka striving to succeed as a chocolatier is another variation on an Alger-inspired template that usually starts with an eager young man from the country stepping off a bus in the big city wearing an old suit and battered straw hat while carrying suitcases covered with stickers that get stolen the second he sets them down.
“Every time, they greedy beat out the needy,” another character warns Wonka. The script illustrates that notion right from its opening musical number, which shows us Wonka spending all 12 measly sovereigns he has in his pocket on such legally mandatory expenses as a fine for daydreaming. He is taken in by what appears to be a kindhearted local innkeeper named Mrs. Scrubbit (Olivia Colman) and her strong but dumb lieutenant Bleacher (Tom Davis), only to realize too late that once he signed himself into this hotel, if necessary he agreed to work off any bill with his own labor and every single thing he does adds another charge to his bottom line, including walking upstairs to his room. (The constant fines imposed on everybody but rich folks are a Dahl like touch verging on Dickensian; so is these cruel characters’ habit of manhandling, clubbing and kicking the powerless, including Noodle, who is just a kid.)
Wonka ends up toiling in a basement laundry facility with other indentured servants like Abacus Crunch (Jim Carter), Slugworth’s one-time accountant, and Noodle, who quickly develops a sibling-like bond with Wonka that is one of the freshest, most appealing aspects of the story. His desire to liberate his friends purifies his ambition to succeed in the chocolate business. He’s not just doing it for himself and his mum he’s doing it for them. But it is a tough road to victory. The script never lets up on forcing Wonka to take two steps back for every three forward (which Chalamet actually does in a scene where he’s walking downstairs an homage to something Gene Wilder did in the 1971 film; you don’t often see metaphors conveyed through actors’ footwork).
Even the most elaborate plans go awry due to unforeseen circumstances or the villains’ interference, requiring on the spot improvisation which luckily are things Wonka and Noodle excel at. And when all else fails well, this is a fantasy movie. We are never entirely clear on how many resources down and out Wonka actually has at his disposal, and what we do see makes us wonder if he might be some kind of otherworldly creature whose only limits are conditioning or psychology.
The “travel kit” for chocolate making that he brings along is practically a small factory with a life of its own, it seems to have its own power source. And when he finally does get around to starting his own chocolate shop (come on, did you think he wouldn’t?), it’s up and running overnight without worrying about where the money, or the materials, or the permits, or the army of contractors to make it happen came from. It’s all very cheeky, it’s like the cut in “The Blues Brothers” when Cab Calloway is told he needs to stall for time at the theater where the big show is supposed to occur, and there’s a cut to a curtain going up to reveal Calloway and the band in on a 1930s Art Deco set wearing white tuxedos and launching into “Minnie the Moocher.”
“Wonka” is not only unapologetic about its contrivances, manipulations, and absurdist embellishments; it lets its good hearted trickster hero and a few other characters comment upon them not as blatantly as a Bugs Bunny or Deadpool might, but practically. Nathan Crowley’s production design, Lindy Hemming’s costumes and Chung hoo Chung’s cinematography create a universe that has some grittiness because of economic distress but otherwise has no connection whatsoever with reality except for being rooted in economic distress. This place has got a class system, everybody else rules one percent. But there are no racist (it’s a multicultural cast). “Wonka” avoids complaints that Wonka’s future factory workers, the Oompa Loompas, are imperialistic caricatures of nonwhite people by casting Hugh Grant as an example alone: He’s sort of an English leprechaun who only visits Wonka while he’s asleep because Grant’s obsessed with his own version(s) pot-o’-gold. Dahl’s tendency to equate conventional beauty with virtue and ugliness with nonstandard body types is also mostly AWOL here, save for having the corrupt police chief swell up from all the bribe candy he consumes, which is a running gag.
The city that Wonka takes over is kind of London and kind of Paris, with bits of other places mixed in. But it’s more like a fantasy or sci-fi movie, a storybook, or a comic book old/new city like the ones in “Amelie,” “Moulin Rouge” and “The French Dispatch.” The performances are largely great (Colman and Grant, as per usual, stand out), though the script leaves some of the actors in the laundry room by not fleshing out their characters enough.
Another (frankly puzzling) disadvantage is the cinematography, which looks beautiful and silvery during flashbacks and certain daylight scenes but at night and in dim venues appears washed-out and indifferently composed like a Netflix original. (Is it inconsistent because of reshoots?) Say what else you will about Tim Burton’s 2005 Wonka film: It looked great from head to toe, every composition popped.
As for the music: writing this review, I can’t hum or quote any of the new songs. But I remember enjoying them as they happened especially the one during the opening credits sequence when Wonka is separated from his money. Hits from the ’71 adaptation are reprised here (most notably the Oompa Loompa song and “Pure Imagination,” also quoted within Joby Talbot’s score), no doubt because audiences expect them to be. They could function as Pavlovian tear-triggers for older viewers. This is, after all, what “intellectual property”-driven productions like this one live for. The approach isn’t wildly different from that of yet another Batman movie, or a Disney prequel like “Cruella.” (The cop corruption stuff feels very “The Batman.”)
But mostly “Wonka” succeeds so well at being itself that whether it’s a cynical enterprise becomes irrelevant. It’s as ebullient yet unknowable as Wonka himself, played with a beautifully withholding quality by Chalamet, who in moments of quiet contemplation and madcap inspiration could be Gene Wilder’s long lost grandchild.
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