Facing life’s challenges
This one will warm your heart, bromides and all
You may need a program to keep up with the wondrous films this year. In addition to recent releases Wonder Woman and the biopic Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, this season also includes Wonderstruck, Wonder Wheel and this one, plain old Wonder.
The source material is the novel by R.J. Palacio, adapted and directed by Stephen Chbosky, whose previous film, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), was a critical favourite and an early post-Potter role for Emma Watson.
Jacob Tremblay (Room) stars as Auggie, about to enter Grade 5 after years of being homeschooled by his mom (Julia Roberts). School is a fraught experience for almost every child, but Auggie is further troubled because he has facial deformities and fears being mocked or bullied. He often wears a spacesuit helmet to hide his appearance.
No doubt you can see where this simple setup is headed. If the resulting film doesn’t warm your heart’s cockles, pull its strings or make it skip a beat, you should either demand your money back or see your cardiologist.
And the good news is that Chbosky mostly succeeds — the film is inspiring without being too saccharine, although it does contain about three too many bumper-sticker bromides.
(Examples: “You can’t blend in when you were born to stand out.” And: “When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind.”)
Auggie’s tale is helped by the fact that the story isn’t completely about him. Chapter headings alert us to the fact that his older sister (Izabela Vidovic), classmates and parents (Owen Wilson plays his dad) all have their own issues. Mom put aside her masters thesis to home-school her son, and sister Via has worked so hard at being the good child that her parents don’t seem to notice her now. All of which proves that even first-world problems come in varying degrees of, er, problematicity. There are other truths made evident. Like the fact that kids who bully often have parents who teach them how to do it. (I’m lookin’ at you, Julian’s mom!)
And that you can never play We’re Going To Be Friends by The White Stripes too many times in a family movie.
Actually, Chbosky pushes the envelope on that one with only two plays. But the point is that Wonder is too good-hearted to nitpick too closely. When your main character dreams up encounters with Star Wars characters that come to life; when his school has Mandy Patinkin as the principal; when the film stops to demonstrate and explain a very cool refraction experiment that you can subsequently try at home — well, sometimes you have to just let go and surrender yourself to the wonder.