☆☆☆
Wonder is a sweet, kind, gentle, tender little movie, a crowdpleaser, a tearjerker, an inspiration, and never once does it get messy or ugly or angry, which is what prevents it from being more than absolutely lovely. There's nothing at all wrong with Wonder -- and that's sort of its problem.
The movie is based on a young-adult novel about a little boy who was born with a horrible disfigurement that has left his face scarred and mangled to the point that he never goes out in public without wearing a toy astronaut helmet.
His name is August Pullman, or "Auggie," and he's also really, really smart, maybe because he has been home-schooled and kept under the constant watch of his family. But now they've decided he should go to school with other kids, and Wonder is about how he gets through that horrible first year.
Jacob Tremblay plays Auggie, and he's absolutely perfect in the role. Shy, tremulous, his big eyes always searching for the next source of emotional pain, Auggie knows what's going to happen when other kids see him, but has learned how to protect himself from the inevitable ridicule and bullying.
His mother (Julia Roberts) is a perfectly angelic sort of mother who has raised her child alongside her quiet husband (Owen Wilson) and beautiful sister (Izabela Vidovic), all of whom have put their lives on hold to bring up Auggie. That has led to some simmering tension, but otherwise things are perfect in their rambling and tastefully decorated Brooklyn brownstone.
It's the home life that's the most troubling aspect of Wonder. Not a thing is out of place in this splendid home, where everyone is always on his or her best behavior, where evenings are spent in a sort of suburban dream straight out of a catalog or an HGTV special. The actors are all fine, and it's particularly nice to see Roberts in a role that deliberately keeps her in the back seat, but ... a sense of anger, hostility, tension or disharmony would have gone a long way toward bring some interest to this otherwise almost painfully dull existence.
There are efforts to make Auggie's sister, Via, into a well-rounded person, and some parts of that subplot works better than others. One key indication Wonder is having trouble is its tendency to turn the focus off of Auggie and onto its secondary characters; Via and her friend Miranda get an awful lot of screen time, at the expense of digging deeper into Auggie's woes.
One of Auggie's biggest difficulties revolves around his friend Jack Will (Noah Jupe), who at first is pushed into a false friendship but soon finds himself drawn into Auggie's splendid view of the world. Because the movie ambles about a bit, this friendship loses some of its focus -- had it been the film's singular focus, Wonder could have been something really special, as both Tremblay and Jupe are enormously appealing.
But that would have required Wonder to be more emotionally risky than it is, to be messier and even a little bit bitter about Auggie's place in the world. It's not. It's a super-sweet, sugar-coated view. And that doesn't mean it's not enjoyable -- it is. But somewhere under that sweet visage is something more curious and intriguing. It's hard not to imagine what Wonder might have been if, like Auggie, it had taken off its helmet and let us peer into its heart.
Viewed December 2, 2017 -- AMC Burbank 6
2000
The movie is based on a young-adult novel about a little boy who was born with a horrible disfigurement that has left his face scarred and mangled to the point that he never goes out in public without wearing a toy astronaut helmet.
His name is August Pullman, or "Auggie," and he's also really, really smart, maybe because he has been home-schooled and kept under the constant watch of his family. But now they've decided he should go to school with other kids, and Wonder is about how he gets through that horrible first year.
Jacob Tremblay plays Auggie, and he's absolutely perfect in the role. Shy, tremulous, his big eyes always searching for the next source of emotional pain, Auggie knows what's going to happen when other kids see him, but has learned how to protect himself from the inevitable ridicule and bullying.
His mother (Julia Roberts) is a perfectly angelic sort of mother who has raised her child alongside her quiet husband (Owen Wilson) and beautiful sister (Izabela Vidovic), all of whom have put their lives on hold to bring up Auggie. That has led to some simmering tension, but otherwise things are perfect in their rambling and tastefully decorated Brooklyn brownstone.
It's the home life that's the most troubling aspect of Wonder. Not a thing is out of place in this splendid home, where everyone is always on his or her best behavior, where evenings are spent in a sort of suburban dream straight out of a catalog or an HGTV special. The actors are all fine, and it's particularly nice to see Roberts in a role that deliberately keeps her in the back seat, but ... a sense of anger, hostility, tension or disharmony would have gone a long way toward bring some interest to this otherwise almost painfully dull existence.
There are efforts to make Auggie's sister, Via, into a well-rounded person, and some parts of that subplot works better than others. One key indication Wonder is having trouble is its tendency to turn the focus off of Auggie and onto its secondary characters; Via and her friend Miranda get an awful lot of screen time, at the expense of digging deeper into Auggie's woes.
One of Auggie's biggest difficulties revolves around his friend Jack Will (Noah Jupe), who at first is pushed into a false friendship but soon finds himself drawn into Auggie's splendid view of the world. Because the movie ambles about a bit, this friendship loses some of its focus -- had it been the film's singular focus, Wonder could have been something really special, as both Tremblay and Jupe are enormously appealing.
But that would have required Wonder to be more emotionally risky than it is, to be messier and even a little bit bitter about Auggie's place in the world. It's not. It's a super-sweet, sugar-coated view. And that doesn't mean it's not enjoyable -- it is. But somewhere under that sweet visage is something more curious and intriguing. It's hard not to imagine what Wonder might have been if, like Auggie, it had taken off its helmet and let us peer into its heart.
Viewed December 2, 2017 -- AMC Burbank 6
2000
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