Youthful tale may be wasted on the young
Imaginative adventure does deliver a payoff, provided audiences have enough patience
Wonderstruck Warning: PG Grade: B-Theatres, showtimes, pages 30-31
“I need you to be patient with this story,” someone tells 12-year-old protagonist Ben in Todd Haynes’ Wonderstruck. It’s good advice for audiences as well: some of the pieces in this cinematic jigsaw are a long time falling into place, and not everyone will find the final picture worth the wait.
The source for the film is the book of the same name, written in 2011 by Brian Selznick after the success of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and adapted by the writer himself. In the story, Ben Wilson (portrayed by Oakes Fegley) is growing up in rural Minnesota in 1977. Following a clue in the form of an old bookmark, he strikes out for New York in search of his father.
Ben’s odyssey is intercut with that of Rose (Millicent Simmonds), who sets out on a similar journey from her Hoboken, N.J., home. But although the two kids cross paths, they never meet — that’s because Rose is in 1927, running away from home and hoping to be taken in by her older brother, who works at the American Museum of Natural History.
Haynes’ shooting style assures us we’re never lost in time or space. Rose’s story is a silent film, delivered in black and white; Ben’s takes place in Technicolour, backed by such groovalicious tracks as Eumir Deodato’s 1973 Latin-jazz version of Also Sprach Zarathustra (a.k.a. the 2001 theme), Sweet’s Fox on the Run and David Bowie’s Space Oddity.
It’s worth noting that both characters are deaf (as is Simmonds). Rose was born that way, while Ben, always half deaf, loses hearing in his other ear after a lightning strike. Neither finds New York the most welcoming environment, although Ben probably has it worse — 1977 wasn’t quite the peak of the city’s robbery rate, but it was bad enough.
But he finds a friend in Jamie (Jaden Michael), whose father works at the museum.
Staying overnight in a storage room, Ben learns that his own natural history may link up to that of the institution in more ways than one.
Wonderstruck carries more than a whiff of an earlier generation’s classic, E.L. Konigsburg’s 1967 tale From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, which was twice made into movies starring no less than Ingrid Bergman (1973) and Lauren Bacall (1995) in the title role. This film strives to capture a similar sense of youthful hijinks laced with just enough danger to make it interesting. (Mostly, the protagonists are worried about being caught and grounded before they can solve their respective mysteries.)
There’s also a touch of Wes Andersonian whimsy in a scene that recreates some of Rose’s life using tiny models. In fact, much of the film has a sense (not literally, but emotionally) of being viewed through a knothole or eyepiece, letting us focus on the details while the larger world falls away. Nowhere is this more explicit than in the scene set at the Panorama, an architectural scale model of New York in Queens, built for the 1964 World’s Fair but apparently still capable of striking awe in those who view it today.
How wonderstruck you are as a moviegoer may depend on hitting the sweet spot of (im) maturity. Very young kids may not have the patience, nor those whose sense of awe has been ossified by age. But if you can surrender yourself to the movie’s charms, there are rewards to be found in this cinematic cabinet of wonders.