Where this trailer for Wonka is concerned, it turns out that not even the words “from the director of Paddington” can offer much comfort. No one, I am fairly certain, asked for a Willy Wonka origin story, but here one is, gilded with that particular magical-shiny-pretend-England glow that “family” films of a certain type are simply required to have. Everything in Wonka is shiny and glossy and soulless—even the chocolate the young chocolatier so cleverly creates.
Also, who let this man look after a child?
Willy Wonka, friends, is a weirdo. Not a manic pixie dream chocolatier. But hey! Perhaps he was just different when he was young. The summary bubbles over with sticky-sweet enthusiasm:
Based on the extraordinary character at the center of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl’s most iconic children’s book and one of the best-selling children’s books of all time, Wonka tells the wondrous story of how the world’s greatest inventor, magician and chocolate-maker became the beloved Willy Wonka we know today. … Starring Timothée Chalamet in the title role, this irresistibly vivid and inventive big screen spectacle will introduce audiences to a young Willy Wonka, chock-full of ideas and determined to change the world one delectable bite at a time—proving that the best things in life begin with a dream, and if you’re lucky enough to meet Willy Wonka, anything is possible.
If you’re lucky enough to meet Willy Wonka, you might inflate like a balloon or float down a river while he sings a creepy song about not knowing where they’re going—or wind up in a glass elevator facing Vermicious Knids—but none of the delightful unpredictability of Dahl’s Wonka appears anywhere near this trailer.
And yet there are so many people in it! Keegan-Michael Key, Sally Hawkins, Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas, Rowan Atkinson, Olivia Colman, and, as Wonka’s young charge, Calah Lane. Perhaps they are here out of respect for Paddington 2 director Paul King, whose presence behind the camera here (he also co-wrote the screenplay) is the single thing that suggests there may be more to this story than this trailer implies.
Wonka creeps out from behind the chocolate waterfall on December 15th.
