Recently Seen: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Based on Roald Dahl's beloved story of the same name, this Tim Burton movie is visually inspired. It is bright candy-coloured rollicking good fun while being rather dark and disturbing at the same time. Standard Tim Burton, one might say.
Charlie Bucket lives with his parents and four grandparents in near-impoverishment in an unnamed town, most Dickensian in look but where people speak in a mix of English and American accents and the currency is apparently dollars. The family lives on cabbage soup and the meagre wages that Charlie's father earns as a cap-screwer in a toothpaste factory. They are poor, but delightfully cheery and loving. The early part of the movie, setting up Charlie's story and the charming dynamics of his family life, is my favourite.
In the same town is the chocolate factory of Willy Wonka, mysterious reclusive millionaire chocolatier. Wonka announces that five lucky children will be invited to tour the factory and one of them will win an extra special prize. The lucky five will be those who find five randomly placed Golden Tickets in Wonka Bars.
One by one, the winners are revealed to us in a series of hilarious media spots. They are the greedy Augustus Gloop, spoiled Veruca Salt, overly competitive Violet Bouregarde and TV-brat Mike Teavee. The fifth, of course, is Charlie.
These ill assortment of children, each with a guardian, gather at the gate of Wonka's factory. Charlie is accompanied by his grandfather, who had years ago worked in the Wonka factory, before it was closed down and later mysteriously reopened and resumed operations without any workers, apparently. From this point, the movie takes on a different tone altogether. We are introduced to Willy Wonka, a strange man in both appearance and behaviour. He brings us into his factory, run by the Oompa-Loompas, where we see many wonderous sights and a few disconcerting ones. The production and set designeers outdo themselves here.
One by one, the children encounter horrible fates until only Charlie is left. In the end, this is a morality fable for children and only Charlie has shown himself deserving of the reward that awaits him.
Roald Dahl was not a fuzzy writer. This story has a very dark edge, what with the rather horrific accidents that befall the four children. Tim Burton does not flinch at these scenes, which is to his credit. When the squirrels set themselves upon Veruca Salt, it was a true horror movie moment, minus the blood and gore. I also loved the scene with the cow being suspended above ground while being whipped by the Oompa-Loompas - to make whipped cream, of course. It is a bravura moment, so unpolitically correct that I half-thought that I had imagined it. I wonder what the animal rights activists have to say about that.
Wonka himself is not a nice character; he is meant to be strange, but surely, even Dahl could not have imagined as odd a creation as Johny Depp's Willy Wonka! Depp is a marvelous actor and an incredibly risk-taking one. Here, he chooses to play Wonka as a deeply weird eccentric who obviously hates children and does not quite know how to deal with people generally. The page-boy hair-cut is reminiscent of Michael Jackson, and some of the mannerisms could even be said to be based on the gloved one. Truth be told, I did not really see much of Michael Jackson in the portrayal; Depp's Wonka is less disingenuous, much more caustic and more genuinely disengaged from people. This performance of Depp's is never less than interesting, altogether unsettling and yet, strangely sympathetic.
As memorable as Depp is, the performance that defines the heart of this movie is young Freddie Highmore, who plays Charlie. Has there ever been a child actor that is more likeable and endearing? His acting is so natural, so honest and unmannered, that Charlie becomes more than a caricature of a good boy with a sweet nature. When Highmore says that he will never give up his family, a scene that could have turned cheesy and over-sentimental in a million ways miraculously becomes genuinely moving and resonant with sincere emotions.
This is a well-made movie and a wonderful treat for the eyes. I felt that the pacing was uneven, with periods of longeur especially during the factory visit. At the start of the movie, we are introduced to the different children and in extended scenes with the Buckets, to root for young Charlie. Once we get to the factory, Charlie and his grandfather take a back-seat to Willy Wonka and the wonders of his factory. There is a discordance here that disrupts the narrative thread and our identification with the protagonist. It does become a different movie once Johny Depp comes into the picture and begins engineering the come-uppance of the more rotten kids. The episodic nature of the children's denouement contributed to the uneven pacing in this second half of the movie.
Suddenly, at the end, we are back in Charlie's world and Charlie's story. There is a tacked-on backstory for Willy Wonka, involving his dentist dad, that is resolved in these last few minutes. It seems unnecessary to me, an attempt at softening a character that is perhaps otherwise too unlikeable. This scripting decision perhaps underlines the main problem that Burton had with this story - to balance his own instincts for the macabre with the need to bring out the positive message of this children's morality tale. We'll never know, of course, but I think he could have succeeded without bringing in Wonka's parental issues. Depp would have brought the macabre in spades and Highmore would have supplied the moral message with aplomb.
Overall rating: 7 out of 10.
Charlie Bucket lives with his parents and four grandparents in near-impoverishment in an unnamed town, most Dickensian in look but where people speak in a mix of English and American accents and the currency is apparently dollars. The family lives on cabbage soup and the meagre wages that Charlie's father earns as a cap-screwer in a toothpaste factory. They are poor, but delightfully cheery and loving. The early part of the movie, setting up Charlie's story and the charming dynamics of his family life, is my favourite.
In the same town is the chocolate factory of Willy Wonka, mysterious reclusive millionaire chocolatier. Wonka announces that five lucky children will be invited to tour the factory and one of them will win an extra special prize. The lucky five will be those who find five randomly placed Golden Tickets in Wonka Bars.
One by one, the winners are revealed to us in a series of hilarious media spots. They are the greedy Augustus Gloop, spoiled Veruca Salt, overly competitive Violet Bouregarde and TV-brat Mike Teavee. The fifth, of course, is Charlie.
These ill assortment of children, each with a guardian, gather at the gate of Wonka's factory. Charlie is accompanied by his grandfather, who had years ago worked in the Wonka factory, before it was closed down and later mysteriously reopened and resumed operations without any workers, apparently. From this point, the movie takes on a different tone altogether. We are introduced to Willy Wonka, a strange man in both appearance and behaviour. He brings us into his factory, run by the Oompa-Loompas, where we see many wonderous sights and a few disconcerting ones. The production and set designeers outdo themselves here.
One by one, the children encounter horrible fates until only Charlie is left. In the end, this is a morality fable for children and only Charlie has shown himself deserving of the reward that awaits him.
Roald Dahl was not a fuzzy writer. This story has a very dark edge, what with the rather horrific accidents that befall the four children. Tim Burton does not flinch at these scenes, which is to his credit. When the squirrels set themselves upon Veruca Salt, it was a true horror movie moment, minus the blood and gore. I also loved the scene with the cow being suspended above ground while being whipped by the Oompa-Loompas - to make whipped cream, of course. It is a bravura moment, so unpolitically correct that I half-thought that I had imagined it. I wonder what the animal rights activists have to say about that.
Wonka himself is not a nice character; he is meant to be strange, but surely, even Dahl could not have imagined as odd a creation as Johny Depp's Willy Wonka! Depp is a marvelous actor and an incredibly risk-taking one. Here, he chooses to play Wonka as a deeply weird eccentric who obviously hates children and does not quite know how to deal with people generally. The page-boy hair-cut is reminiscent of Michael Jackson, and some of the mannerisms could even be said to be based on the gloved one. Truth be told, I did not really see much of Michael Jackson in the portrayal; Depp's Wonka is less disingenuous, much more caustic and more genuinely disengaged from people. This performance of Depp's is never less than interesting, altogether unsettling and yet, strangely sympathetic.
As memorable as Depp is, the performance that defines the heart of this movie is young Freddie Highmore, who plays Charlie. Has there ever been a child actor that is more likeable and endearing? His acting is so natural, so honest and unmannered, that Charlie becomes more than a caricature of a good boy with a sweet nature. When Highmore says that he will never give up his family, a scene that could have turned cheesy and over-sentimental in a million ways miraculously becomes genuinely moving and resonant with sincere emotions.
This is a well-made movie and a wonderful treat for the eyes. I felt that the pacing was uneven, with periods of longeur especially during the factory visit. At the start of the movie, we are introduced to the different children and in extended scenes with the Buckets, to root for young Charlie. Once we get to the factory, Charlie and his grandfather take a back-seat to Willy Wonka and the wonders of his factory. There is a discordance here that disrupts the narrative thread and our identification with the protagonist. It does become a different movie once Johny Depp comes into the picture and begins engineering the come-uppance of the more rotten kids. The episodic nature of the children's denouement contributed to the uneven pacing in this second half of the movie.
Suddenly, at the end, we are back in Charlie's world and Charlie's story. There is a tacked-on backstory for Willy Wonka, involving his dentist dad, that is resolved in these last few minutes. It seems unnecessary to me, an attempt at softening a character that is perhaps otherwise too unlikeable. This scripting decision perhaps underlines the main problem that Burton had with this story - to balance his own instincts for the macabre with the need to bring out the positive message of this children's morality tale. We'll never know, of course, but I think he could have succeeded without bringing in Wonka's parental issues. Depp would have brought the macabre in spades and Highmore would have supplied the moral message with aplomb.
Overall rating: 7 out of 10.
Labels: Movie Reviews
posted by gentleice the deptfordian at 9:17 PM
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