Review of Wonderstruck (2017) by Jim G — 07 Oct 2017

In 1977, a young boy runs away to NYC to look for his father while in 1927, a deaf young girl does the same in order to meet a movie star whom she idolizes. These two storylines are presented concurrently in Todd Haynes's new film, with the 1927 story shot as a silent B&W film backed with lush and narratively synchronised orchestration while the 1977 story has saturated colours and the groovy musical vibe of the time.

Inevitably and not much of a spoiler to say that these two strands will somehow meet and I confess that I was very much more enchanted by this film than some other critics I have read. Brian Selznick, author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret which was turned into Martin Scorsese's Hugo, adapted his own book this time and if you like that and don't have a problem with that film's sentimentality, then you should love this too.

Carter Burwell's excellent score hits all the right notes in a film where many scenes are dialogue-free while Haynes proves both his artistry and dexterity, not only in a genre that's new to him but also meets the challenge of creating two distinctive films with an eye to details that allow the timelines to interlock and flow into each other in a meaningful and most intriguing manner.

To think that a film about museums and dioramas can deal with the subject matter of deafness and loss, I was totally taken aback, 'wonderstruck' even, by how affected I was by its magical fairytale-like quality.