CHOC AND AWE
FICTIONAL CONFECTIONER’S ORIGIN STORY IS AN ABSOLUTE TREAT
WONKA (PG) HHHHI REVIEWS BY DAMON SMITH
AS SOMEONE with an insatiable sweet tooth, this soft-centred musical comedy – based on characters created for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – is my idea of a lip-smacking treat.
Young Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet) nurtures a reverence for lovingly handmade chocolate from his mother (Sally Hawkins), who scrimps to buy ingredients for one bar of the silky confection.
When she passes away, Willy pursues his dream of opening a chocolate shop at the Galeries Gourmet, a glittering arcade where confectionery titans Slugworth (Paterson Joseph), Fickelgruber (Mathew Baynton) and Prodnose (Matt Lucas) already have high-end boutiques.
Alas, the entrepreneurs have formed a secret chocolate cartel and bribe the Chief of Police (Keegan-Michael Key) to thwart Willy’s wholesome ambitions.
Young Wonka falls into the clutches of villainous Mrs Scrubbit (Olivia Colman) and her sidekick Bleacher (Tom Davis).
An orphan named Noodle (Calah Lane), one of Mrs Scrubbit’s other victims, assists Willy in a plan to access a secret vault guarded by cleric Father Julius (Rowan Atkinson) and a brotherhood of chocaholic monks.
Chalamet exudes an undimmable childlike ebullience in the title role that harmonises perfectly with barn-storming songand-dance numbers and mouth-watering production design and costumes. And there’s a scene-stealing turn for Hugh Grant as an Oompa-Loompa.
Sugar syrup in a symphony of colours is drizzled over every feelgood frame, handstirred at a similar temperature to writerdirector Paul King’s big-screen adventures with Paddington Bear, and lavishly decorated with the blessing of Roald Dahl’s estate – the grandson of the children’s author, Luke Kelly, is one of the producers.
King and co-writer Simon Farnaby combine scrumdiddlyumptious ingredients from Dahl’s books including macabre humour and characters with vividly descriptive names, with nostalgic references to the phizz-whizzing 1971 musical comedy starring Gene Wilder.
Neil Hannon, of pop band The Divine Comedy, provides original songs that fizz pleasantly in the short-term memory.
Admittedly, plotting is the least flavourful element of King’s confection and a set piece with a rampaging computer-generated giraffe over-extends, but in other respects, this fantastical origin story is splendiferous.