‘Wonka’ or — Somewhat Divine?

I was not looking forward to ‘Wonka’ (2023) at all, dreading it was going to be a sickeningly saccharine prequel to a movie that people fawn over so much nowadays it drives me up the wall whilst CGI bollocks are swung at my face and Timothée (what kind of spelling of Timothy is that?! Is he a person or a brand of shampoo?) Chalamet, an actor so profoundly dull and uninteresting I had trouble distinguishing between him and the sand in ‘Dune’, prances about like an irritating, joy-enforcing idiot as ‘Pure Imagination’ is rehashed for the umpteenth fucking time.

Yep, I’m certainly not looking forward to th… oh, look! The songs are by The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon!

‘Wonka’ is good. Actually, scratch that — it’s REALLY good, and might just be one of the most straightforwardly enjoyable films of the year (remember when films use to be straightforwardly enjoyable?) although that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise considering it’s from the same team of filmmakers who made the delightful ‘Paddington’ movies, two films that managed to balance many elements — charm, humour, sentimentality, excitement, etc — without one overpowering the others or descending into unbearable whimsy or schmaltz.

Chocolatier extraordinaire Willy Wonka arrives in the big city determined to set up the world’s greatest chocolate shop. However, due to failing to read the small print on his accommodation contract he soon finds himself in a position of indentured servitude which threatens to put his chocolate dreams permanently on hold.

Although maybe chocolate, along with a little help from his fellow captives, could be the solution to their predicament.

I was a bit worried ‘Wonka’ would revolve around nothing other than the building of Wonka’s factory and/or chocolate empire, plus a bucket-load of fan-service, so the fact it didn’t focus on that until the final scene of the movie was really quite refreshing, almost to the point that the real centre of the story isn’t Wonka himself but Noodle (Calah Lane), a spirited young orphan he befriends.

So it’s a fun and exciting tale bolstered by some decent humour, colourful acting and a boat-load of Neil Hannon songs, and even though none of them have the ear-worm catchiness of ‘The Candy Man’ or ‘Pure Imagination’ they’re all nicely written and with that typical Hannon capacity to blend a good melody with the right amount of flair and quirk. And the use of magical chocolate to justify jumping off into a musical number is frequently inventive and always fun.

Although the biggest surprise was Chalamet himself who makes for an incredibly likeable Wonka. Sure, he might not possess Wilder’s maniacal psychopathology but this is a more wholesome outing for the candy-making weirdo and Chalamet delivers a performance almost as delicious as his sweeties. In fact, this might be the most engaging and watchable he’s ever been. Am I finally a fan?

‘Wonka’ is not perfect, lacks the dark edge of the original and you could accuse it of simply delivering more of that colourful, highly polished spirit of the ‘Paddington’ films. But that doesn’t sound like a bad thing, does it?