Everyone knows (or should know) that any recipe, no matter how extraordinary and complex it may be or how tasty it may seem, gains a ton with the simple trick of dipping it in chocolate. That is so and not even the army of gourmands, good living and chefs who have populated the audiovisual panorama (and the other) for some time now, nor Bernard Shaw himself, who, apparently, was a fan. Chocolate, as a friend very concerned about climate change said, is the best reason to conserve this planet of ours.
Paul King —seconded by some very intoned Timothée Chalamet, Olivia Colman, Hugh Grant, Sally Hawkins y Rowan Atkinsonamong others—is very aware of the addictive and universal power of cocoa and, consequently, his particular revision of the fable devised by Roald Dahl, and with two cinematographic precedents as notable as those signed by Mel Stuart and Tim Burton, it is basically a celebration of chocolate’s ability to improve everything: just apply a thin (or not so thin) layer on top.
Indeed, ‘Wonka‘does nothing more than appeal to everyone’s imagination to indulge in something as simple and enjoyable as the set of gratifications that accompanies the discovery of a bar in the chocolate drawer, a box of chocolates just given as a gift, or a cute candy. Easter with a child’s nose stuck to the glass of the pastry shop. It appeals to all that and to the universe itself that surrounds the character in question and that, in one way or another, accompanies us. King strategically arranges pieces in his film in the form of homage to previous versions of Willy Wonka while he turns the traditional musical genre not so much into an end to show off and exuberance as into a delicate and precise excuse for feelings as noble as reunion and, more importantly, recognition until complete identification. No one, each in their own way and probably for different reasons, would hesitate to change for Wonka.
If in his previous adaptations of Paddington he paid tribute to Michael Bond’s books until transforming them into a filmed children’s book that was also a journey to the depths of sentimental education, now he strives to elevate the myth of the master chocolatier until it becomes the sweetest , fun, carefree and greedy for aspirations. Everyone’s. It is a dream, yes, but dipped in chocolate. The story of Wonka before he became who he finally was is told. To build his empire he will first have to fight against the bad guys, who are none other than the owners of the chocolate monopoly. Everything takes place in a dream Paris halfway between Dickens’s London and Johanna Spyri’s Switzerland.
Composer Joby Talbot mixes new songs with the songs that Gene Wilder already sang in a premeditated study of remembrance, not nostalgia. The idea is not to surrender again to the burdensome melancholy of the longed-for old days but rather to celebrate the common. And among all the themes, none like ‘Oompa Loompa, doompety doo’ performed by a rediscovered Hugh Grant in the role of, you guessed it, Oompa Loompa. Next to him, the protagonist Timothée Chalamet confirms himself as an actor capable of speaking face to face not only to myths (yes, they are, even though they have fallen) like Johnny Depp or Wilder but to the imagination shared by everyone. The fun is in breaking an ounce into four and only eating one of the pieces.