My Corner

December 2023

Wonka is a movie that dares to say yes. Yes to whimsy. Yes to musicals. Yes to heart. Yes to making you feel like a child again, wide-eyed and sugar-drunk on possibility.

I went in skeptical. Another prequel? Another famous character reimagined through soft lighting and backstory and sentimentality? I expected something shiny and hollow. What I got instead was a film that made me cry in the dark of the theater and then laugh five seconds later. I got a movie that understood the delicate balance between sweetness and sadness. I got magic.

From the very first frame, director Paul King sets a tone that is inviting and off-kilter. The world of Wonka is not quite real, but it’s not fake either. It’s stitched together from dreams and memories, fairy tales and old musicals, Parisian alleyways and English cobblestone, flickers of Amélie and Paddington and Moulin Rouge, with just enough grime to make the sparkle pop. It’s the kind of world where anything can happen and often does.

Timothée Chalamet gives a performance full of restraint and warmth. His Wonka isn’t manic or creepy or smug. He’s lonely. He’s determined. He believes in chocolate the way poets believe in love. He carries a bar his mother made for him and whispers to it like a talisman. There’s something aching beneath his charm, and that ache gives the performance its glow. You believe in him. You want him to win.

And then there’s Noodle. Calah Lane’s Noodle might be the beating heart of the film. She’s clever and dry, with eyes that say “I’ve seen too much” but a voice that still dares to hope. Her chemistry with Chalamet feels honest. Not forced. Not saccharine. Just two souls who find each other in the mess and decide to stick together. Their bond gave me goosebumps. Real ones.

The villains are delightfully grotesque. Think Dickens but dipped in caramel. Think capitalism with a candy coating. The system is rigged, and Wonka keeps losing. He gets tricked, jailed, scammed, robbed, pushed down, and pushed out. But he never quits. That’s what makes him a hero. Not that he’s the best or the smartest or the most powerful, but that he keeps trying. That he dreams big and dares to share the dream.

The music won’t haunt your shower like La La Land, but it hits the spot. It lifts scenes when they need lifting. It softens the sharp edges. It gives the world rhythm. And when “Pure Imagination” comes in, my throat caught. Not because it was a callback, but because it felt earned.

Is it a little silly? Yes. Is it polished and packaged with a smile and a wink? Of course. But it never feels cynical. Not once. This isn’t a movie made by committee. It’s a film made by people who still believe in wonder, who know the difference between childish and childlike, who understand that candy doesn’t need a point. It just needs to taste good and make you feel something.

And this movie tastes good. It’s a peppermint swirl of joy and longing and hope. It’s the kind of film you want to hold close, the kind you want to share. It made me believe again in the power of a well-timed song, a flicker of light, a small act of kindness. It made me believe that the world, for all its cruelty, still has room for sweetness.

Wonka isn’t perfect, but it’s sincere. And in an age of irony and spectacle, that might be the most magical thing of all.