Review of Wonder Wheel (2017) by Tom C — 07 Jun 2018

Woodrow is a consistent four-star filmmaker, but he really missed the mark with this one. Given all his recent trouble with the #metoo movement, this really doesn't look good for him; Kate Winslet's Ginny is a cold, unsympathetic, uncompromising madwoman. The most sympathetic, moral character is her abusive husband Humpty; not a good time for Allen to share these kinds of complicated character dynamics. On a visual design level, it is among his finest works, only very little character substance to fill in the gorgeously lit space. I'm not exactly sure when shit hit the fan for Allen, but it legitimately looks like he just gave up making it - all along it's building towards Ginny's arc, which we never get. Despite the empathy we sense for an aging woman's sexuality, nothing about her depiction seems very poignant.

It seemed promising at first; a cross war of each other's respective children, Humpty unable to stand her son's mischief, Ginny jealous over his daughter's relationship with the young man she's been having an affair with. But Winslet's ferocity is almost too much at times. At first you want to see her have that arc, but she goes overboard when she makes a key decision later in the film. We get our emotions held up in the belief that she will have that arc, reaching across to her step-daughter with love, protecting her from the danger she's in. But as Mickey's friend says earlier, "you're not dealing with sense, you're dealing with feelings." That's a fact for everyone in the film, no sensibility anywhere. I guess Allen is trying to make a point with that in the 1950s, but something about it just seems too unbelievable.

There is this ridiculous moment when Mickey goes to Ginny at her home, having concluded what happened to her step-daughter by an absurd estimation of facts as if he were TV's OCD detective Monk. He follows this with, "it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out..." I laughed, thinking, gees, it really kind of does take Holmes to figure that out!

The film ends just as we're anticipating the next act, which never comes.