Give Me Oatmeal

You may find it hard to believe after reading this, but I really wanted to like 2023's Wonka. I went in loaded with good will, I was ready to be swept away by musical magic. But, man, oh, man. Hugh Grant was right. This movie blows.

I didn't think the trailers looked great but then I heard about how this was a surprisingly good movie and saw how word of mouth was giving it good box office numbers. Even one of my students here in Japan recommended it to me. Well, I saw it in a theatre with an entirely Japanese audience. No-one laughed. Not once.

The film opens with a few notes from "Pure Imagination". Along with original songs, it includes a couple from the 1971 movie, to which Wonka is a "spiritual prequel". I thought, okay, sure, why re-invent the wheel? I feel like Danny Elfman's Batman theme should always be Batman's theme and John Williams' Superman theme should always be Superman's theme, through good movies and bad. Why not Wonka too?

Sure the new songs can't pull their weight. We meet Wonka standing on a topmast as his ship pulls into the harbour of an unnamed fantasy city, singing weakly (because Timothee Chalamet's voice is really weak) about how he's going to make his way here. The song, like all the other new ones, feels like a vague, tuneless echo of a song from Sweeney Todd or Aladdin. We see him gradually lose his only twelve shillings and there should be a lot of tension, we should be worried about this idealistic kid, except he has a magic hat and suitcase that can basically do anything and he never seems worried.

Okay, I thought, maybe I'm just approaching this film the wrong way. Maybe there's something else I'm supposed to get invested in. I never found out what it was. I'm pretty sure the filmmakers didn't know. Every time there's a moment I think, "Oh, this is going to be a problem to overcome", it dissolves instantly. He's thrown down a chute, forced to work in a laundry room to pay his overpriced hotel bill and he's separated from his magic hat, which was left on the counter. Guess he's going to have to use his smarts to--no, wait, he has his hat again. No explanation. His magic suitcase comes and goes, too.

There's a lot of dialogue about terrible poverty and the cruel owners of other chocolate companies but it all feels so pointless. Instead of leaving the theatre delighted by the human spirit, the magic to be found in an earnest dream and the common pleasure of chocolate, I left feeling oppressed by the sense of a soulless mechanical mind, draining all sense of possibility and joy from the familiar pleasures of home and childhood. The costumes were nice, though.

Wonka is now in theatres everywhere.

X Sonnet #1804

A flash of teeth between the flames at dawn.
The passing spark of scales on lively waves.
The little tremb'ling dasher's swiftly gone.
WIth razor claws 'tis meat the dragon saves.
With bubbles popped, the week began in green.
A waiting green persists for days ahead.
Reductive kindness smacks of something mean.
So offer, then, the honest torch instead.
A vaunted choc'late harboured only air.
Extracted darkness leaves confections weak.
A beaten candle struggles up the stair.
The fourth's the last but two was truly peak.
A coat sufficed for candy starved and sad.
A tasteless meal is worse than really bad.