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'Wonderstruck' a lovely tale of imagination and nostalgia
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A still from 'Wonderstruck.' (Amazon Studios/File)
W
em>Wonderstruck helmed by American director Todd Haynes, a lovely tale of children’s imaginations and New York City nostalgia buoyed with captivating music and baroque visuals of the 1920s and 1970s, came fresh from Cannes Film Festival last year, with Haynes nominated for the Palme d’Or.
In the film, Julianne Moore reunites with Haynes for the fourth time (Safe, Far from Heaven, and I’m Not There), joined by Michelle Williams, Oakes Figley, and Millicent Simmonds.
The story follows two protagonists, Ben (Figley) and Rose (Simmonds), simultaneously told in multiple timelines as they seek the same mysterious connection in New York City.
The story is adapted by author and illustrator Brian Selznick, whose The Invention of Hugo Cabret inspired Martin Scorsese to adapt Hugo (2011). There are recurring themes between those two books, such as mysterious characters, dreams and a heap of magic.
Ben (Figley) living in 1977, having recently mourned the death of his mother is left with a question in his head—his father’s absence—that needs a solving. He finds a trace of his father, that he lived in New York, however, lightning strikes and Ben loses his hearing. Despite this bad news, Ben decides to go to New York City in a quest to find his father.
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The film alternates between Ben and a sweet, shy girl named Rose, who was living in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1927. She’s born deaf, but she longs to connect with actress Lillian Mayhew (Moore). Haynes pays homage to silent movies by making Rose’s entire sequence in black-and-white and completely silent, much like F.W. Murnau.
The movie is colored according to the era the two are living in. Rose, living in 1927, is painted in a grainy black-and-white with a percussive score. Ben, living in 1977, is painted in faded oranges and greens, mimicking the popular 1970s cinematography of The Godfather and Shaft.
Wonderstruck is quite an ambitious movie from its narrative structure; jumping back and forth between two timelines and mysteriously connecting two protagonists. The movie traces both their fates as they live parallel lives that eventually connect.
But an emotional payoff is the aspect Wonderstruck lacks. Despite a lengthy build-up of characters’ emotional proportions, the multiple timeline narrations dissolve many sweet moments that could potentially construct the characters’ emotions, and ultimately the narrative structure splatters all over the place. The climactic scene takes place at the Queens Museum’s Panorama of New York City, where the revelations are finally unveiled as the mystery between Ben and Rose is finally connected, the audience is placed in a painstakingly breathtaking miniature of the New York City metropolis, but the narration takes a long time to get there and the audience is at the point of exhaustion to see the conclusion of the story.
Despite that, the movie is by far Haynes’ most accessible work and he still manages to capture the need to explore the human connection. (rzf/kes)
