The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
‘Wonder’ is a cry-fest, but it’s also complex and funny
Middle school can be agonizing for any kid, but, as “Wonder” begins, we suspect it’s going to be especially hard for 10-year-old Auggie Pullman.
After 27 surgeries to help him see, breathe and hear, Auggie ( Jacob Tremblay) doesn’t look like other children. He’s small and scarred, with ahigh-pitched, scratchy voice and a braided rattail, and he usually wears an astronaut helmet when he leaves the house. But after years of being homeschooled by his mother ( Julia Roberts), he’s preparing to join his peers at New York’s Beecher Prep.
“Dear God, please make them be nice to him,” Auggie’s mom says to his dad (Owen-Wilson) as they watch him walk into school for the first time.
In the wrong hands, “Wonder” could be amaudlin slog, filled with platitudes about treating others the way you want to be treated. But noted child-whisperer Stephen Chbosky (“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”) directed the drama, mostly avoiding treacle with a script he co-adapted from R. J. Palacio’s beloved bestselling children’s novel.
The result i s not all anguish and bullying. “Wonder” is complex, funny and — of course — a real cry-fest that looks at the very real burdens of being a kid.
Like the novel, the movie isn’t just the Auggie show. It’s told from different perspectives. His sister Via (Izabela Vidovic) provides her equally shattering story of living in a house where she was mostly overlooked by a mother and father busy taking care of a sick child. “August is the sun,” she says of her brother in voiceover — everyone revolves around him. Her story is all the more touching because of her love for him; she isn’t bitter so much as desperately lonely.
Even though Auggie and Via’s parents don’t get their own dedicated narratives, their agony and fear is in the background. Auggie’s mother makes a particularly interesting character as a woman who gave up her dreams of a Ph.D. to care for her son and now feels both thrilled and guilty about getting her own life back.
Meanwhile, although Auggie aces every pop quiz, he struggles socially at school, where one toxic Eddie Haskell-type (Bryce Gheisar) mercilessly teases him whenever adults are out of earshot. Predictably, after a few snags, Auggie makes some meaningful connections.
“Wonder” does occasionally suffer from kidmovie pitfalls, straining to be cute or mining humor from ridiculously precocious little ones. But mostly it succeeds in telling not one complicated story, but many, and giving the experience of being a confused or lonely or scared youngster the space it deserves.