Won­ka review – Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met is sim­ply sensational

As we rapid­ly approach the end of what has been some­thing of an annus hor­ri­bilis for the hum­ble block­buster (Bar­ben­heimer notwith­stand­ing), and fol­low­ing on from months of bit­ter­ly con­test­ed strike action that brought Hol­ly­wood to a stand­still, it’s no exag­ger­a­tion to say that the film industry’s hopes and expec­ta­tions for Won­ka are high­er than a group of kids hopped up on fizzy lift­ing drinks.

Praise be, then, to direc­tor Paul King and his long­time writ­ing part­ner Simon Farn­a­by. Not con­tent with serv­ing up a pair of near-per­fect Padding­tons, the duo have con­coct­ed some­thing even sweet­er and more sur­pris­ing this time around. A pre­quel of sorts, Won­ka is first of all a visu­al mar­vel in which the CGI is seam­less­ly blend­ed with eye-pop­ping prac­ti­cal effects that defy expla­na­tion. It might just be the most tech­ni­cal­ly astound­ing cap­i­tal­ist ori­gin sto­ry since Cit­i­zen Kane.

This is a film that has been dou­ble dipped in lav­ish spec­ta­cle and then gen­er­ous­ly sprin­kled with all the charm, silli­ness and wit found in Roald Dahl’s source nov­el. Yet it also con­tains a pro­gres­sive mes­sage and is tem­pered with a dis­tinct­ly mod­ern sen­si­bil­i­ty (gone are the colo­nial over­tones of the book) that is at once belied by the qua­si-Dick­en­sian set­ting, retro-styled cos­tumes and steam-pow­ered pro­duc­tion design.

Dahl’s odd­ball pro­tag­o­nist is imag­ined by King and Farn­a­by as a younger, spright­lier and more whole­some ver­sion of him­self. He’s intro­duced as an ide­al­is­tic entre­pre­neur­ial wun­derkind who moves to the big city to realise his dream of open­ing his own choco­late shop, only to be way­laid by an exploitive innkeep­er (Olivia Col­man) and her buf­foon­ish lack­ey (Math­ew Bayn­ton), and hin­dered fur­ther by a greedy priest (Rowan Atkin­son) and a still greed­i­er police offi­cer (Kee­gan-Michael Key), who are in cahoots with a trio of unscrupu­lous con­fec­tionery tycoons (played by Pater­son Joseph, Matt Lucas and Matthew Baynton).

Tim­o­th­ée Cha­la­met is sim­ply sen­sa­tion­al in the title role, tak­ing a char­ac­ter pre­vi­ous­ly immor­talised on screen by Gene Wilder (and lat­er car­tooni­fied by John­ny Depp) and mak­ing it entire­ly his own. He may not pos­sess the raz­zle-daz­zle show­man­ship required to pull off some of the film’s more dynam­ic musi­cal num­bers, but Chalamet’s per­son­al­i­ty more than makes up for his lack of trad the­atri­cal chops. And while this may be a more sani­tised and sin­cere Won­ka than we’ve seen before, cru­cial­ly Cha­la­met is nev­er afraid to get weird with it.

Speak­ing of which, (top) hats off to Hugh Grant for con­tin­u­ing his recent run of scene-steal­ing comedic sup­port­ing turns. As an ostracised Oom­pa-Loom­pa who stalks Won­ka seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for some stolen cocoa beans, Grant is a total­ly tan­goed delight, and is quick­ly becom­ing King’s secret weapon. Else­where, fel­low Padding­ton alum Sal­ly Hawkins makes a brief but affect­ing cameo as Wonka’s absent moth­er, while Atkin­son and Key get big laughs play­ing the afore­men­tioned cler­ic and cop (although we could have done with­out the fat jokes).

If the phys­i­cal appear­ance of the Oom­pa-Loom­pa is the most con­spic­u­ous call­back to Mel Stuart’s 1971 film Willy Won­ka & the Choco­late Fac­to­ry, it’s the orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions by Leslie Bricusse and Antho­ny New­ley to which King’s film owes the biggest debt. Indeed, the new­ly writ­ten songs for Won­ka, bril­liant­ly orches­trat­ed and per­formed though they are, don’t real­ly linger beyond the instant sug­ar-rush grat­i­fi­ca­tion that hits you in the moment. For a film so steeped in nos­tal­gia, how­ev­er, per­haps it’s fit­ting that you’re more like­ly to leave hum­ming a famil­iar tune.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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