Wonder Wheel **** (2017, Kate Winslet, Justin Timberlake, Jim Belushi, Juno Temple) – Movie Review

Writer-director Woody Allen’s 2017 Wonder Wheel is a dark, bleak masterwork, a late gem from the troubled film-maker, in the vein of his Blue Jasmine. I think I counted one attempt at joke in the entire drama.

Really going for it, and fully profiting from her dialogue coach, Kate Winslet is remarkable as tragic 40-year-old Ginny, a one-time actress and now unhappily married to the best-intentioned but uncouth carousel operator Humpty (Jim Belushi) and working as a waitress in a clam house on Coney Island in the early Fifties.

Ginny meets handsome young lifeguard Mickey (Justin Timberlake), a posing, pretentious, yet still appealing ne’er-do-well aspiring playwright. They start a illicit love affair, which Ginny hopes will be her salvation, just as Humpty’s 26-year-old estranged daughter Carolina (Juno Temple) from a previous marriage returns after her marriage to a gangster has failed.

Carolina is desperate, begging for forgiveness from Humpty, a home, and shelter from the angry abandoned gangster, who soon sends two goons (Tony Sirico, Steve Schirripa) to try to find her.

Wonder Wheel has self-conscious echoes of A Streetcar Named Desire, Long Day’s Journey into Night and The Sopranos, but remains its own thing. Allen is up for comparisons with Tennessee Williams and Eugene O’Neill. His dialogue is rich and compelling, and he films in longer than usual takes that allow the actors time to speak and breath.

That doesn’t mean this plays like a stage show. Not at all, it is extremely cinematic, thanks to gorgeous cinematography by Vittorio Storaro and glorious production design by Santo Loquasto. They make it into a beautifully unreal-looking artwork, with moody, unnatural colours and sets and backdrops. Coney Island in the early Fifties is conjured up as a fantasy, or half-forgotten memory, a fairy tale fun situation, set ironically against the story’s doomed nature and tragic characters.

Acting wise, Winslet is the star and the standout, but Belushi, Temple are and Timberlake are riveting too, with Timberlake impressing in a tricky role as the story’s inadvertent catalyst and narrator to camera. But they are all dependent on the film-maker’s art. Allen’s work both as writer and director is really extraordinary. Wonder Wheel is a Wonderful film on the high level of achievement of Blue Jasmine.

The soundtrack offers Allen a chance for some sweet nostalgia, with Coney Island Washboard (performed by The Mills Brothers) and Kiss of Fire (Performed by Georgia Gibbs, Glenn Osser and His Orchestra) notable. [Spoiler alert] Kiss of Fire reminds me. Winslet has a young son (Jack Gore) who is a pyromaniac. This could be quite a funny idea in a black comedy, but here it is as bleak as hell, and this is the image the film ends on.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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