Movie Review: Wonderstruck

Wonderstruck **** / *****

Directed by: Todd Haynes.

Written by: Brian Selznick based on his book.

Starring: Oakes Fegley (Ben), Julianne Moore (Lillian Mayhew / Older Rose), Millicent Simmonds (Rose), Michelle Williams (Elaine Wilson), Jaden Michael (Jamie), Tom Noonan (Older Walter), James Urbaniak (Dr. Kincaid), Amy Hargreaves (Aunt Jenny), Cory Michael Smith (Walter).

 

The knock on director Todd Haynes has always been that he’s too cold and distant as a director – that he seems to prefer the style of his films to the content, the storytelling structure to his ideas, and that when the movie ends, you’re left cold – never really connecting with the material. In the weaker of Haynes’ films – like his feature debut Poison or Velvet Goldmine – I can somewhat agree with that complaint. And for a while in his latest, Wonderstruck, I couldn’t help but wonder if the same thing was going to hold true with this. I didn’t really mind this watching Wonderstruck – which always has something to admire, something to look at, or hear, at every moment in the film – but it is true that the film holds you at some distance for much of its runtime. The ending though gets there – as a Haynes film almost always does. In a way, his films have more impact when they do hit on that emotional button – because for much of them, he refuses to do that.

 

Wonderstruck is based on the book by Brian Selznick – which like his The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which Martin Scorsese turned into the delightful Hugo, is told in part pictures, and part words. This film flashes back and forth in time, from 1977 to 1927 – and tells the story of two different children making their way to New York in search of lost parents, and discovering something else. In 1977, the kid is Ben (Oakes Fegley), an orphan whose mother (Michelle Williams – once again in a Haynes movie for all of about five minutes, and making me want to see more of her – like I’m Not There) has just died, and now he has to stay with relatives. He has no idea who is father is, but stumbles upon a few clues, which lead him from Minnesota to New York – all after an accident leaves him deaf. In 1927, Rose (Millicent Simmonds) is around the same age – 10-12, somewhere around there – and is stuck in a regimented life in Hoboken, also deaf, with a family that doesn’t understand her. She goes to New York to find her mother – star of stage and screen Lilian Mayhew (Julianne Moore) – but she doesn’t have time for her. She can play a devoted mother on screen, but in real life, she views her own children as a burden.

 

As Haynes has done often in the past (in films like Poison, Velvet Goldmine and I’m Not There), he flashes back and forth between times periods, and cinematic styles. For all intents and purposes the 1927 segment is a silent film – in beautiful black and white, but without the intertitle cards. The choice of 1927 is not a coincidence – it’s the year that Peter Bogdanovich says, probably correctly, that directors had perfected the silent film – films such as Buster Keaton’s The General, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc, F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans – and many, many others came out that year, as did The Jazz Singer, the first “talkie” that came along and destroyed it all. Haynes, who has always been a brilliant study of cinema’s past, bringing older forms back in his films, does a great job here with a silent film. The 1977 segment looks, purposefully, like a film from that era – the images look sunburnt, slightly orange as the colors bleed into each other. There is dialogue in this segment – but Haynes switches between the sound, and the silence to thrust us into Ben’s world.

 

From a technical standpoint, Wonderstruck is a characteristic triumph for Haynes and his collaborators. The great Edward Lachman once again delivers stunning cinematography in both styles, and the period detail of the costumes and sets is wonderful. Composer Carter Burwell outdoes himself here, using various means to create the soundscape of this world, and the world inside the heads of its two protagonists.

 

The story creaks a little bit here and there, and the narrative relies perhaps too heavily on coincidence – and you certainly see where it’s going. This is partly due to the source material – the book is aimed at children after all. Haynes film is probably not for kids – at least not young ones – who will likely grow restless with the films runtime (just over two hours) and narrative structure – but older, intelligent kids should definitely see it - for once they aren’t being talked down to. The film doesn’t quite hit the magical heights of Hugo – but it comes close at its best.

 

For much of the runtime, I admired everything about Wonderstruck, loved parts of it, but did feel that perhaps this time, Haynes had made a film that was a little too cold. The ending though works brilliantly, and on an emotional level. There is a great sequence – among the best in any Haynes movie – in which he goes back to his Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story roots that is brilliant on a technical level, and then goes deeper. The very end nearly brought me to tears. So no, once again, Haynes will be accused of making a cold and distant film, and once again, those accusations will be long. He holds you at arm’s length for a while – and that’s why the ending works like it does. Wonderstruck doesn’t quite the same level as Haynes’ masterpieces – like Safe, Far From Heaven or Carol – but that’s because he’s set the bar so high for himself, not because Wonderstruck is at all a disappointment.