Wonder Wheel | Woody Allen | NYFF 2017
Woody Allen transports us to Coney Island in the 1950s in his latest picture Wonder Wheel. We are told a story by a lifeguard Mickey Rubin (Justin Timberlake), serving as our narrator.
In this story, a young woman named Carolina (Juno Temple) returns home looking to speak to Ginny Rannell (Kate Winslet), the second wife to her father Humpty (Jim Belushi). Ginny is a failed actress who once dreamed of stardom but now spends her evenings working as a waitress at the local clam shack. Caroline begs and pleads with Ginny to let her come back home and live with them, but Humpty is going to be hard-pressed to welcome her back after she ran away to marry her mobster boyfriend Frank despite her father forbidding it. He knows that if he takes her back in it can only spell trouble for both her and the rest of the family.
Things are complicated by Mickey’s involvement in the family, striking up a love triangle with both Ginny and Carolina, despite the latter being clueless about his growing love affair with her stepmom. Ginny, however, knows full well that he begins seeing Carolina as well and soon bottles up resentment for the both of them, which doesn’t spell well for either considering that Frank has sent out mobsters who are hot on Carolina’s tail.
Allen stages it all like a play (Eugene O’Neill in particular), allowing his actors plenty of one-on-one action of lengthy scenery that they chew away. This is a perfect platform for Winsley who is of course as good as ever in the role and offers up a performance of a lifetime. It’s just too bad that the script and the rest of the cast aren’t quite up to snuff. Belushi and Temple do hold their own and Timberlake is likable as always but it’s hard to see him go toe-to-toe with Winslet when she’s quite simply just operating at another level entirely.
For the story’s shortcomings, it’s all captured in such an awe-struck color palette by the great Italian cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. It’s just too bad that the material isn’t fresh or clever enough to utilize his work or the great performance from Winslet in what will probably sadly be a thankless role when in reality the movie should’ve been strong enough to push her to the forefront of awards consideration.
This isn’t the worst Woody Allen but it’s definitely not one of his strongest features but there’s enough talent involved in this to elevate the material enough to where it’s worth giving a watch.
Rating: 6.0/10
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