Unusual ‘Wonderstruck’ falls a little flat
The unusual new “Wonderstruck” — a movie about children that seems intended for adults — seeks to be wondrous in impressing filmgoers looking for something classy and devoid of explosions, special effects and superheroes.
And on some levels it succeeds. Its twin stories set 50 years apart in New York City are beautiful to look at. The soundtrack by noted film composer Carter Burwell is richly rewarding to the ear, all the more relevant in a drama that revolves around deafness and goes long passages without dialogue.
But the Todd Haynes-directed film, written by Brian Selznick based on his own illustrated kids book, comes up short in the storytelling department. It might be a rare adult indeed — let alone any child — who finds the 117 minutes spent in a seat to be justified by the payoff of its slow-building character mystery.
That mystery revolves largely around what connection lies between two stories that are juxtaposed constantly throughout “Wonderstruck.” We learn rather quickly that they share themes around hearing loss and the yearning for missing parents. It takes a lot longer to discover how any of the characters are directly related in a way we might care about, if we haven’t lost interest by then.
In one story, Ben (Oakes Fegley), a 12-year-old from Minnesota, peppers his mother in 1977 with questions about the father he never knew. Events unfold that lead him on a solo trip to New York City in search of Dad. It’s a journey he navigates amazingly well for his age, although he does learn that in NYC’s harsh “Taxi Driver”-”Death Wish” era of the ‘70s it’s not wise to walk around with your wallet out counting your money on the sidewalk.
The alternating tale is of a
Hoboken, N.J., adolescent, Rose (Millicent Simmonds, a deaf girl playing a deaf girl), who longs in 1927 for connection in New York with her mother, a silent film star played by Julianne Moore. These scenes are striking, both in how they are shown in black and white and played as silent film scenes themselves, conveying Rose’s point of view.
Ms. Moore ends up with a role in both stories, though she never says a word in either. The storylines also are united by the pivotal role of Manhattan’s American Museum of Natural History. They additionally share an affinity for conveying the importance of always having a pen and notepad if you are either a deaf person or knows someone who is — never before have so many handwritten notes been shared on film.
It all actually sounds like it had the potential to have been very intriguing (except maybe for all the note writing). But the result — other than the sights and sounds, or lack thereof — is rather ordinary, leaving us feeling a few explosions and superheroes might actually have been welcome.