Starring: Timothee Chalamet, Calah Lane, Hugh Grant, Olivia Colman, Keegan-Michael Key, Jim Carter, Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Runtime: 116 mins. Reviewed in Dec 2023
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc
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With dreams of opening a shop in a city renowned for its chocolate, a young and poor Willy Wonka discovers that the industry is run by a cartel of greedy chocolatiers.
Everyone knows the name, Willy Wonka. He first appeared in Roald Dahl’s story in 1964 and a subsequent story in 1972. Roald Dahl has been one of the most popular storytellers, especially for younger audiences, with such titles as Matilda, The Witches, James and the Giant Peach . . .
But, Willy Wonka is known far more widely than his readers with the 1971, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, with the engaging Gene Wilder, and the popular songs, Pure Imagination, and the Oompa Loompa song (both in this present film but not The Candy Man). Tim Burton did a reinvention of Willy Wonka with Johnny Depp in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Now, here is a prequel. Where did Willy Wonka come from, where did he learn how to make chocolate, his relationship with his mother, his ambitions to open a chocolate store, a nicely naive young man setting out on an adventure. The screenplay actually takes a number of issues from the original story, especially the villainous chocolate cartel entrepreneurs and their opposition to Willy Wonka.
Quite a lot of plot for a prequel. However, this new film is also designed as a musical, rather reminiscent of the film versions of Broadway musicals (and, most probably, Wonka is destined for Broadway and beyond). The new songs are pleasant even if not so memorable as Pure Imagination, sung nicely by the various characters with lyrics that illustrate their characters and the situations – the most memorable, perhaps, involving the repetition and the beat of the word, Scrub.
The film has been co-written and directed by King who became a great favourite with his pleasing and entertaining Paddington films. He brings the same sensibility to Wonka.
And, to be the new Willy Wonka, here is Chalamet who has already proven himself as a substantial actor on screen presence in dramas and comedies but, especially as Paul Atreides in Dune – with Dune 2 scheduled for release in 2024. He is quite small, young-looking, a blend of the innocent and the ambitious, remembering his mother (a cameo by Sally Hawkins), generous, but shocked to discover the greed of a venal world. And the tag, ‘the greedy always beat the needy’ often repeated throughout the film.
There is something rather Dickensian about the early sequences, Wonka encountering an ultra-Dickensian landlady played by Colman. And Wonka is sentenced to a long imprisonment below the boarding house, a workhouse laundry, with a different assortment of penalised characters, especially a young girl, Noodle, who tries to save Wonka. Among those down below is the former accountant of the cartel, played by Jim Carter, liberated from Downton Abbey.
Willy Wonka has a chest full of ingredients for chocolate, a magician’s capacity for multiplying chocolates with the most exquisite tastes and physical and psychological effects, leading to a lot of comedy turns. He concocts a plan to escape from the laundry with Noodle’s help, then with the help of the others, to find the cooked books of the cartel and expose them. However, they have their allies, the chief of police, the chocoholic Keegan-Michael Key (and his fat suit, fatter suit, fattest suit after his choc indulgence), and the chocoholic priest, Rowan Atkinson this time with no weddings but one funeral.
The cartel is sinister, led by the aggressive Paterson Joseph, aided by Matt Lucas with an orange wig which falls off, and Mathew Baynton who chokes whenever he tries to say the word ‘poor’ and gags when others see it. They are due for a comeuppance.
And, the Oompa Loompas? Well worth awaiting the arrival of a miniature Hugh Grant as Lofty, resentful that Wonka has stolen his special beans and demanding repayment. Hugh Grant has been sending himself up in recent films and obviously is enjoying this escapade, a heroic rescue for Wonka and Noodle – and a kind of MC entertainment during the final credits.
Roald Dahl is often quite dark in his stories. Even though Wonka is light, there are the three villains, there is the corrupt chief of police and priest, and a dire attempt on the life of Willy Wonka and Noodle.
This is quite a lavishly produced entertainment, incorporating happy memories of Willy Wonka from the past, drawing us into his extraordinary chocolate world yet again.
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