Wonka the origin story, with Timothée Chalamet the chocolatier of every child’s fantasy, in a movie aimed straight at those with a sweet tooth and a love of whimsy. Lacking edge, stakes, call them what you will, it’s one for lovers of the soft centre.
So, right, yes, story – Wonka arrives in somewhereland (England?) in ye olden times on a boat, with a pocketful of sovereigns and A Hatful of Dreams (first of the Neil Hannon songs), loses all his money to various urchins and mountebanks, and winds up in the clutches of a Mrs Scrubitt (Olivia Colman) and right-hand man Bleacher (Tom Davis), trapped by a contract he too readily signs, not realising that it indentures Wonka to Scrubitt for a squintillion years.
His only chance of rescuing himself from drudgery in Scrubitt’s subterranean laundry is to establish himself as a maker of world-beating chocolates. But the path to that glory is blocked by a trio of established chocolatiers: Slugworth (Paterson Joseph), Prodnose (Matt Lucas) and Fickelgruber (Mathew Baynton).
The arc is would-be disruptor attempting to cross the moat of established enterprise, in other words. Wonka is new start-up Facebook in a world dominated by MySpace.
The tone is Charles Dickens by way of Dr Dolittle and Mary Poppins, with director Paul King, of Paddington fame, dredging everything in a sticky orange glow, gussied-up steampunk mechanicals and distorted boggled-eyed close-ups on characters from the big book of pantomime.
At one point Wonka, aided by the chums he’s made at Mrs Scrubitt’s, gets hold of a derelict unit in the arcade where Slugworth, Prodnose and Fickelgruber ply their trade, with the intention of setting up shop on his own. How did he do that with no money? It’s not explained. This is light-hearted escapism: whimsical, musical, phantasmagorical. Almost as if the draft script had “something… something… something… fill in details later” but then someone forgot to do that and so that’s the way it’s ended up on the screen.
Well at least a miniature, green-haired Hugh Grant was OK as the original Oompa Loompa? And Calah Lane as Noodle, Wonka’s plucky sidekick? Yes, they are. But the general beef here isn’t with the performances – Colman, Grant, Lucas, Joseph and Baynton, plus Jim Carter, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson and a whole load of other British character actors, all of whom can gurn at Olympic level, are fine. It’s the strange inconsequentiality of everything, as if the idea had been floated to make a sequel to 1971’s Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – and thereby atone for the 2005 Tim Burton/Johnny Depp Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – but at no point was any real imagination applied. Oh the irony, considering that Pure Imagination, from the 1971 movie, is the only song to make it into this prequel. Also, this is Roald Dahl, everybody, where’s the darkness? A spoonful of medicine helps the sugar go down.
Chalamet is very good. He’s bright and metrosexual and cute and there’s the occasional flicker of a nod back to Gene Wilder, but Wonka’s sinister stranger-danger element, which both Wilder and Johnny Depp managed, is missing. Chalamet’s Wonka is the Victorian gentleman amateur Brits adore – see Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Who – the sort of mildly eccentric decent chap who built an empire with good manners and a game of cricket. Hannon’s songs are good and bounce along in the same Victorian, vaguely music-hall vein – there’s a nice running gag in them about words that rhyme with “chocolate”.
I’m mystified by the good reviews, raves in fact. This is a well made movie. It’s well cast and its visuals are as rich and lush as a Christmas chocolate assortment box. But it’s also formless, unfunny and just goes on and on in that one-damn-thing-after-another way. Jeopardy? None. Wizard-like, every time Wonka gets into a tight spot out comes the magic wand – a fantastical sweetie of some sort – and all is well again. Oh well, it seemed to work for most people, but not for me. Walks off, shrugging, muttering to himself.
Wonka – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
I am an Amazon affiliate
© Steve Morrissey 2024
