‘Every good thing in this world started with a dream. So you hold on to yours...’
Now, obviously, I don’t like musicals. When you are a man who has given up on life to the extent I have, you’re not going around with a song in your heart and a twinkle in your toes. And so, when I discovered that Wonka was to be a musical (despite the best efforts of the original trailer to hide the fact) my dark heart sank a little. It’s worth considering however that the wonderful Gene Wilder version of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory was also a musical. While I don’t think Wonka is enhanced by the music, it’s not ruined by it either…
Willy Wonka (Timothy Chalamet) arrives in an unnamed, fictional city with high hopes of making it as a chocolatier. Unfortunately, the city in which he has arrived is already ruled over by a chocolate cartel made up of Matt Lucas, Mathew Baynton and Paterson Joseph (who plays iconic head villain Slugsworth). Even worse, Wonka soon finds himself entrapped in a situation of his own making when a failure to read the fine print (he is illiterate) results in a life of servitude at the hands of evil landlady Mrs. Scrubitt (Olivia Colman). Also living under the watchful eye of the illustrious Scrubbit is Noodle (Calah Lane), a lonely orphan with a grim future ahead. The stacked cast is rounded out by a chocolate-addicted and corrupt policeman (Keegan-Michael Key), a chocolate-addicted and corrupt priest (Rowan Atkinson) and a very grumpy Oompa-Loompa (Hugh Grant).
Writer-director Paul King and co-writer Simon Farnaby are best known for their work on the Paddington franchise and Wonka has much the same feel. It’s heartwarming stuff that raises the occasional smile without ever threatening to be properly funny, the songs (written by The Divine Comedy frontman Neil Hannon) are serviceable rather than truly effective and the plot is predictable. Aside from these minor quibbles, however, Wonka must be considered a success. Chalamet is enchanting and likeable as ever, the talented supporting cast does a great job playing off him, particularly Colman and Grant who are both great (despite the fact Grant apparently hated the whole experience), and it must be said that the film looks spectacular. The mixture of sets and location shooting puts purely aesthetic directors like Tim Burton and Wes Anderson to shame and it’s hard not to be swept up in the whole thing. Indeed, I had something in my eye at the end there. A word too for Calah Lane who I hadn’t come across before but who is genuinely excellent here. A bright future ahead for that one.
Wonka is not a masterpiece but it is successful enough and innovative enough to justify its existence and it further strengthens the argument that Chalamet is one of the most talented actors of his generation (something that I have admittedly been a long time in accepting). Sweet.