Wonderstruck

Cert: Club; Selected cinemas

Bar exceptions, generally authors are kept at arm’s length from screen adaptations of their own novels, and now and again you’re reminded why. Films and books work differently, and succeeding at one doesn’t necessarily qualify you for the other.

Todd Haynes (Carol, I’m Not There) is very much a filmmaker with his own views on how things should be done. It is understandable that he might be attracted to Wonderstruck, Brian Selznick’s time-bending illustrated novel for younger readers, but it becomes apparent early on in this outing that perhaps an outsider should have been brought in to reconfigure Selznick’s bestseller rather than have Selznick take on the task himself. Ponderous, meandering and lacking any oomph or momentum, it never takes off.

Ben (Oakes Fegley) and Rose (Millicent Simmonds) are two youngsters living in two very different eras of US history. The former has lost his hearing through a freak accident and is searching for his absent father in the cultural cauldron of 1977. Running parallel are the fortunes of Rose, a deaf girl in 1927 who, beset by vivid dreams, leaves her father’s home and sets out in search of Lillian Mayhew (Julianne Moore), a celebrity she has become obsessed with.

Just as one storyline begins to catch fire, we swap to the other. A converging of the threads is obviously on the cards by the end of this two-hour trial but it’s hard to maintain much interest that long. A decent cast and a strong sense of the two eras are really the sole saving graces.