Patron Pick – Wonka

This special reward is available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 monthly levels. Each month, those patrons will pick a film for me to review. If they choose, they also get to include some of their thoughts about the movie. This Pick comes from Matt Harris.

Wonka (2023)
Written by Simon Farnaby and Paul King
Directed by Paul King

Why? Why was this movie? Yes, I know it was made because a series of corporations made legal acquisitions of the film rights to Roald Dahl’s writings, and so they made the movie to recoup the costs spent on purchasing the rights with the idea of also turning a profit. What I am asking is why, from a creative perspective, does this film exist? What does this add to one’s appreciation of Dahl’s original novel or the character of Willy Wonka? Nothing about this film feels like it has anything to do with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory besides Wonka and Oompa-Loompas. I would go so far as to argue that not one of the three live-action appearances of Wonka on film does the book character justice, as much as I love Gene Wilder.

A young Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet) arrives in…generic Europe(?) after traveling the globe to learn how to become the greatest chocolatier. He wants to set up shop at the Galeries Gourmet, an open-air corner of …um, the city (?) to showcase his wares. Threatened by his chocolatey prowess, the trio of Slugworth, Prodnose, and Fickelgruber (Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas, and Mathew Baynton, respectively) set about a conspiracy to kneecap the young entrepreneur. Using the police under the command of a chocolate-addicted chief (Keegan Michael-Key), Wonka must also contend with slave-driving landlady/employer Mrs. Scrubit (Olivia Coleman). He does find allies in Noodle (Calah Lane), an orphan girl forced to labor for Scrubit, and a host of other people stuck paying off debts. Then, Hugh Grant shows up as Oompa-Loompa.

Let us first address our film’s lead, Mister Timothée Chalamet. I don’t have anything against him; in fact, I enjoy much of his work. Call Me By Your Name was very good; he did a great job in Bones and All. Dune, I’m a little more lukewarm on, not because of him, but because it’s just a film at a scale I find difficult to connect with. This role feels entirely wrong for what made him work in those other pictures. Chalamet has shown he does an excellent job of playing troubled, sensitive types. I joke with my wife when I talk about him, jokingly referring to the actor as “that soft boy.” Wonka is not a character that makes sense for him to play, as he’s not weird enough. 

This is made all the more infuriating because I like writer-director Paul King. I was a big fan of the oddball British comedy The Mighty Boosh, which he was a significant creative influence behind. His co-writer, Simon Farnaby, is part of the troupe behind Horrible Histories/Ghosts (along with Mathew Bayton), who is also fantastic. These are very clever people, but I don’t think they were allowed to exercise that cleverness. Instead, I suspect Warner Brothers had demands and expectations resulting in a script that feels test-audience approved and market-oriented rather than the product of people who love the source material.

Part of what I loved about The Mighty Boosh was its distinct visual style. There was this textured handmade quality to the show. Paul King continued to exhibit this aesthetic in his feature debut, Bunny and the Bull. His work on the Paddington movies was a little cleaner, but he still managed to match style & tone in a way that made that work sing. Wonka feels like plummeting off a cliff into the bland CGI hell you could imagine. The lighting is way too harsh and washed out, resulting in muddy, unpleasant images.

Partner this with a script that feels fresh out of the Marvel school of screenwriting, and we’re left with a lifeless dud of a film. It’s as forgettable as a bit of cotton candy fluff dissolving on the tongue, leaving a saccharin aftertaste. The songs are dreadful. They keep teasing “Pure Imagination,” but give us musical numbers you forget as soon as they are over. I cannot remember a single song, most blending together just days after viewing this movie. They needed many more drafts and sounded like something written during a lunch break. The musical genre has always been one I thought of as being rich with clever wordplay. Not here, it seems.

“Half-baked” is a great adjective to describe everything about this movie. The characters never feel developed enough that I have a shit about them. Wonka and Noodle become co-leads and I felt little investment in their broadly drawn and boring arcs. Every event that happens, every song that is sung, every “twist” in the plot feels like a movie killing time until the credits roll. This is even worse because the picture wastes talented people like Olivia Coleman and Hugh Grant in their middling roles. King knew precisely how to implement Grant in Paddington 2 but could not recreate that magic here. Keegan Michael-Key feels like the actor most at home, a performer who hasn’t met a corporate script he won’t frantically run towards for the paycheck. You would think the story would be more exciting in a film with FIVE villains. Nope.

Who is Wonka for? I can’t imagine little kids would keep up with the unnecessary, slow, tedious narrative at work. This doesn’t feel like a prequel to the 1971 film at all, it doesn’t even attempt to capture the look or tone of that film at all. It’s also not adapting Dahl’s storytelling structures or any artists who have illustrated well-known versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It references things from that movie but in clunky ways that don’t lead anywhere. It tries to be relevant (the cops are bad) but then does a 180 on that (the cops save the day). 

There’s no explanation for why Wonka’s business practices would be better and different than his rivals, just that he makes fantastical candy. It plucks the standard maudlin heartstrings that other movies have done far better. Much like Barbie, another Warner production of 2023, this is a cynical film pretending to espouse some optimistic sentiment. Wonka was just so unnecessary and a waste of resources and time.