Woody Allen’s ‘Wonder Wheel’ turns on complicated relationships

If you’ve followed Woody Allen’s work over the years – especially in recent years – you likely know his take on how messy relationships can be. His lm “Wonder Wheel” is a virtual monument to that theme, and also to how much natural talent certain actors bring with them to a project. In this case, that surely is true of Kate Winslet, playing an emotionally desperate wife and mother in the Coney Island of the early 1950s. That setting gives the picture its title, taken from the name of the famous site’s Ferris wheel. A clam-bar waitress, Winslet’s Ginny is underappreciated and abused ... making her ripe for the attention of a younger lifeguard (Justin Timberlake) who has ambitions of becoming a playwright, prompting him to reduce life to a script. at greatly helps Allen’s story structure here, since the would-be writer becomes the tale’s de factor narrator. At the same time, it’s frustrating, since Allen effectively is telling us what to feel when we should know that for ourselves. makes studio’s It can’t the view) be timing ignored innopportune. of that “Wonder Allen That Wheel’s” has date resurfaced would release have in curious news been stories and set (perhaps long lately, before, which from but its with scandals that have been shaking the entertainment industry lately, there would have been time to change it. In any event, getting back to the movie itself, more personal complications are in store with the arrival of the daughter (Juno Temple) of Ginny’s second husband (Jim Belushi). The younger woman is on the run from her crime-connected spouse, having informed on him to the Feds (and setting up a brief and fun reunion of “Sopranos” alums Tony Sirico and Steven R. Schirripa) – and despite her troubles, that doesn’t keep the lifeguard from falling for her, posing new heartache for the already wracked Ginny.