‘Wonder Wheel’
Reading Time: 2 minutes
I saw ‘Wonder Wheel’ at the only screening time of 9.15am. Consequently, and perhaps not surprisingly, I had the whole theatre to myself.
Having read a number of reviews of ‘Wonder Wheel’, Woody Allen’s latest film, I was curious to discover whether this film could possibly be as bad the critics suggested. Even as a Woody Allen fan, I knew that he had written and produced several clangers, and consequently feared the worst. But I was pleasantly surprised.
The film is set in post World War 2 Clooney Island, where Humpty, a sweaty middle aged carousel operator, played by Jim Belushi, lives in an amusement park apartment overlooking the Ferris Wheel, with his younger waitress/former actress wife, Ginny, played by Kate Winslet, and Richie, played by Jack Gore, Ginny’s young son from a previous marriage.
The story told by the film is about their unhappy lives being complicated by Richie’s pyromania, by the unexpected arrival of Humpty’s 26 year old daughter Carolina, played by Juno Temple, who has run away from her abusive gangster husband, and by Ginny’s affair with Mickey, a younger handsome lifesaver, played by Justin Timberlake, who also narrates the story to the camera at intervals throughout the film. I won’t give away any more of the story line, as it is clever and worth experiencing first hand.
In fairly typical Woody Allen style, the film feels more like a play, but in light of this film’s dialogue dominated script, appears to work well – even if at times the lines seem to be overly projected. On the other hand, unlike typical Woody Allen movies, the film has few, if any, of his trademark (and increasingly tiresome) smart one-liners.
Since leaving the theatre, I have thought about some of the film’s themes, such as intermittent unrequited love, whether in love self interest justifies lapses in duty to others, the ‘ethics’ of infidelity, why stained white singlets should not be worn at the dinner table, and even the psychiatric treatment of pyromania.
My conclusion? If you enjoy live theatre and clever dialogue delivered by an excellent cast, you could do much worse than see Wonder Wheel.
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