WONDER WHEEL Review

One might summarize Wonder Wheel, this year's offering by the prolific Woody Allen, as being the epitome of what many would call, "meh." "Meh" is what one would call expressing a lack of interest or enthusiasm. "Meh" is what one could define as uninspiring or unexceptional and in the pantheon of Allen-produced films over the past fifty years Wonder Wheel certainly falls into the category of "meh". That said, the visual elements that see legendary cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now, Last Tango in Paris) shooting Allen's fifties-set melodrama like it were a postcard where the colors are saturated to the point they are about to burst off the screen are fantastic and serve to be the only thing that is somewhat memorable about Allen's latest effort. The sweeping sequences that involve Storaro's re-creation of Coney Island that is partly comprised of practical effects, part location B-roll, and other part full-on digital trickery would seem to encourage the movie to immerse the viewer in this setting and yet, even as the strongest facet of the film, the location serves as little more than a backdrop. A backdrop for yet another of Allen's explorations of the kinds of characters made famous in the likes of Tennessee Williams works that he's already explored in Blue Jasmine and has probably explored multiple times before that, but my Allen filmography knowledge gets a little spotty prior to 2005 sans the obvious stand-outs. What I kind of expected from Wonder Wheel given Justin Timberlake's (yes, Justin Timberlake is your Woody Allen stand-in this time around) delivery of certain lines in the trailer was that of an homage of sorts to (or even parody of) the big melodramas of yesteryear where the actors were performing with a knowing sense of what they were going for and of letting the audience in on the fact of what they were going for. Were this true and we, the audience, ended up laughing with the movie instead of at the movie it might feel like a completely difference experience, but as it is Wonder Wheel is a movie out of touch with what it should be and what it needed to be in order to pull-off what it seemingly wanted to be. But hey, it really is visually stunning, so there's that.

First Trailer for Woody Allen's WONDER WHEEL

To be honest, it felt a little strange not having a Woody Allen movie to catch up with this August or September and I wondered, only momentarily, if the writer/director had become so busy with his Amazon series, Crisis in Six Scenes, that the toll had become too much and he simply wouldn't be able to keep up with his regular output of a feature a year. Of course, as soon as I googled to see the status of the almost eighty-two year-old's latest projects I remembered that I'd heard rumblings of the fact he was working with Justin Timberlake on a new project and, of course, that project would end up being Allen's 2017 feature titled Wonder Wheel. The film, which stars Timberlake as a lifeguard on Coney Island during the 1950's, tells the story of a middle-aged carousel operator and his beleaguered wife. This first trailer seems rather in line with what we've come to expect from the auteur as of late as far as story is concerned as Allen seems to be getting extra nostalgic, or-at least-more enchanted with the idea of bringing the days of his youth back to life as four of his last seven films have taken place in the (distant) past. And while I didn't adore last year's Café Society in the way that I'd hoped I might I thought it was a fine and fun enough trifle that at least looked gorgeous. I can very much see Wonder Wheel turning out the same way as Allen has once again partnered with cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, who also shot Café Society, as well as a number of other notable movies like Apocalypse Now and Last Tango in Paris. Allen had regularly worked with Darius Khondji prior, but it seems Khondji has been booked more than usual as of late and has thus led to a new partnership that I think Allen's work is all the better for-especially when set in a specific time period of the past that calls for rose-tinted glasses in the way Allen's themes will typically line up with. And, of course, Allen is always able to wrangle up a rather stellar cast as, on top of Timberlake (who I'm still not sold on as a serious actor by the way), the film also stars Kate Winslet, John Belushi, Juno Temple, and a host of Allen regulars including Max Casella and Steve Schirripa. Wonder Wheel opens on December 1st, 2017.