No wonder it’s good

Wonder Wheel Kate Winslet, Jim Belushi, Juno Temple, Justin Timberlake

PG

Nick Dent

A NEW Woody Allen film comes around every year like Christmas. But the octogenarian, who disappoints way more often than he delights, still has a few tricks up his sleeve.

His new movie is one of his better efforts of late, despite being one of the darkest.

The setting is Coney Island, the famous beachside fun park in Brooklyn, in the 1950s.

Ginny (Kate Winslet) is a waitress at Ruby’s Clam House

and is is unhappily married to Humpty (Jim Belushi), who operates a carousel and struggles to stay off the booze, which makes him abusive.

Ginny’s only bright spot is that she’s having an affair with a lifeguard called Mickey (Justin Timberlake), trysting with him under the boardwalk whenever rain relieves him of his beachside duties.

We know this because Mickey himself confesses it to us in his capacity as narrator.

Timberlake’s sardonic presence gives a downbeat film plenty of pep, but the film belongs to Winslet.

Wonder Wheel charts her decline from desperation to something much worse, and Winslet plays it to the hilt.

Wonder Wheel opens in cinemas today.