This is Super Bowl weekend, everyone. It's a weak
period for new releases, expanding releases, and business in general. This
makes it a tough weekend to find a movie for. I'm obsessive about keeping my
current streak of one movie a week going (it currently goes back to July 2012,
btw), but I've never said it has to be a new movie. It normally is new due to
the simple mechanics of if I see new movies every week, there's not much left
by the second weekend. The last time I remember needing to use an already-released
movie with The Giver in
2014, so it's been a while. This is certainly the first time I've relied on a
film in its 12th weekend. It helps round out my Oscar count though, so what's
the harm?
Wonder has
an easy premise. It's about a boy, Auggie, with, let's just call it extreme
facial differences, who starts going to a real school for the first time and
how his story affects those around him. Other than the fact that I don't trust
movies that play their sentimentality card so readily, there's not much to
explain why I didn't see this when it first came out. Auggie is played by Jacob
Tremblay who was excellent in
Room. As the parents,
Owen Wilson and Julia Roberts are actors I find difficult to dislike. It's
written and directed by Stephen Chbosky who really impressed me with The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
This was an oversight on my part.
You're probably a bad person if you don't like Wonder.
You just are. I don't mean to be inflammatory by saying that. I just don't see
how someone could muster a strongly negative feeling about the movie. The
central messages of accepting each others' differences is hard to argue with,
especially on such a personal scale. None of the actors are giving career-best
work, but they all have great warmth. Roberts and Wilson could've easily
overplayed the protective parent thing, but they hold themselves back enough.
Teachers at Auggie's school like Daveed Diggs and Mandy Patinkin do most of
their work with small nods or reactions (i.e. they're the grownups in the
school). None of the child actors in Auggie's school blew me away. They work as
types though. Tremblay is a little too buried under the makeup to compare to
what he did in Room. I wasn't distracted by the makeup and I still
managed to shed a tear or two for him though. I do think Izabela Vidovic, who
plays Auggie's older sister is really good. Also, is it just me or does she
look like a younger Carey Mulligan*?
*This is no ways implies that I consider Carey
Mulligan old. She is 16 years older than Vidovic, so I think that wording is
allowed.
The thing I liked the most about Wonder is
its ability to zoom out. It starts as just the story of Auggie and how he sees
the world. As the story continues, we see things from the perspective of
several other characters, like Auggie's sister, Auggie's classmates, and even
one of Auggie's sister's friends. This does a superb job of reminding us that
everyone has problems and no one ever really fits it all the way. Auggie is a
great extreme case. Then the film uses that same eye for more mundane
situations. By the end, I was surprised by how many of the characters I
genuinely cared about.
This film isn't without its flaws. The big tragedy
in the movie is telegraphed pretty early and was cheaply emotional in a way
that didn't fit with the rest of the movie. The "villains" of the
movie were poorly handled. In a movie that's all about not making surface
judgments about people, it sure felt like they dropped the ball with that family,
who are lazily stereotypical. I couldn't stop my cynical side from rolling my
eyes a little at the end either. These are all comparatively small issues
though.
I'm 12 weeks and $130 million behind on this, but Wonder
is a really good movie. I wouldn't argue with you if you wanted to call it
required viewing for all kids (and most adults). It's not revolutionary, but it
has a good heart and is executed just about perfectly for its end goal.
Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend
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