Wonka Review - A Bad Musical Wrapped in a Good Film

“I didn’t know it was a musical”, my partner said to me as we walked towards the cinema on a chilly Glasgow evening. We were booked to see the new… prequel? Or at least - the origin story of everyone's favourite fictional chocolatier and factory tour health and safety flouter, Wonka.

I can review the film in one sentence. Wonka is a great, feel-good, family film, but it’s not a good musical. 
For the avoidance of doubt, Timothée Chalamet is absolutely fine in the role, charming and quirky. You kinda believe he has dreams and is ready to mould them into magical existence. The rest of the cast is a chocolatier's row of actors, all of whom could (and many have), lead their own films and shows. Honourable mention to Olivia Colman whose panto villain Mrs Scrubbit, alongside Tom Davies, is perfectly pitched and appropriately cruel without being hammy.

Timothée Chalamet starts the film on top of a ship's mast, looking ahead to his bright future. Sliding down an icy rope, the musical kicks into full swing with ‘a hat full of dreams’, a traditional jaunty ‘I want’ song. For a moment I’m really excited. This bold statement of musical intent is a positive sign and if I get two hours of this, it’ll be incredible; but by the end of the song, the big introduction to wonka and the world, I'm left wanting more. More musical. 

I’m a musical lover, but I know the baggage that comes with using the word. So much so that studios are even marketing movie musicals like they’re not musicals because they’re worried that will be a turn off for audiences. I do get it, asking audiences to buy into musicals is harder. You need to suspend disbelief even further and ask more of the viewer. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. What I do think is bad, is delivering a movie as strong as Wonka and leaving the musical side of the film to look like an afterthought. 

Neil Hannon of Divine Comedy fame wrote the songs for the film. They are, on balance, decent songs. They’re catchy, clever, lyrically match the world well and there is no doubt that Hannon is an extremely accomplished artist in his own right, but his work feels let down by a lack of musical ambition and casting. There was more to be said but the film didn’t allow space for it. 

While studios might believe a new musical is a hard sell, this isn’t new in a way - it’s an existing property and a universe the audiences know about. The secret weapon Hannon and composer Joby Talbot have is the evocative ‘pure imagination’ refrain, used beautifully in underscoring key moments as well as a rewritten full song for the end of the film.

Outside of a few nice motifs and catchy tunes, the music doesn't go far enough. Songs are rarely used to tell the story, to help us understand what a character is feeling or thinking. Most songs are describing what’s happening during the song, Scrub Scrub being a big offender. The wannabe show-stopping number ‘You’ve Never Had Chocolate Like This’ doesn't stop anything apart from the flow of the film, shunting into different musical modes like it can’t decide what it wants. At one point Wonka offers a couple of tram passengers a choc, saying “just pop one in and everything becomes a broadway show”. Once they consume the 42nd sweet, they burst into lively song and dance, imitating musical theatre performers. It’s a bold move to surround your lead actor with triple-threat musical theatre performers Robyn Rose and Millie O'Connell, when moments earlier he was on top of a table that was as shaky as his dancing.

There’s something to be said for giving the audience confidence in who they’re seeing on screen. The Greatest Showman, for all its faults, at least takes amazing performers and puts them front and centre. So, when Hugh Jackman or Keala Settle start singing, half your brain isn’t wondering, oh wait, can they sing? Oh they can. No, wait, the music’s pitch is kept low for the lead actor.

That opening shot I mentioned earlier, when Chalamet started singing, inspired uncomfortable laughter at the cinema - something I think was unfair, but I understand where it came from. You’re asking people to buy into the world, a world where people sing, so they need to feel confident that the people in the world can carry it off. Sadly for Wonka, this filters down to smaller roles in which actors who otherwise are brilliant look almost uncomfortable having to sing. It’s not giving them as performers the best chance to shine, or the role the best chance of being performed well. You may be the best actor in the world, but if you can’t act through song, you’ll stick out. 

You wouldn’t get away with casting a non-dancer as the lead in a film or show about a character that’s supposed to be an incredible dancer. I don’t think audiences would buy it, yet we accept non-singers in movie musicals all because they’re big names. 

“Yes, I loved it, but Pierce Brosnan cannot sing” - sadly a not-uncommon refrain heard after the touchpaper was lit for the first Mamma Mia film, and I think it’s unfair. Brosnan’s performance is compelling, charming and perfectly pitched for that movie, yet because humans love to latch onto others’ imperfections, that’s what’s remembered. I don’t blame Pierce.

There’s a shocking double standard when it comes to dubbing in modern cinema. If you need a Hollywood star to be in your movie musical and they’re not a good singer, just invest in a voice double. So what if Russell Crowe’s fans miss out on hearing him vocally crawl through his songs in Les Mis? It’s a win for all involved. The studio gets its big name, the audience aren’t completely taken out of the film by an off voice, and they get to enjoy the big actor for what they’re good at - acting. No one sits through ‘The Sound Of Music’ not enjoying it, because it’s not really Christopher Plummer singing Edelweiss.*

Go big or go home. Commit to the idea, cast the best musical theatre/movie musical cast you can and blow the audience away.

*A note, Christopher Plummer was actually a half-decent singer, as evidenced by this recently released clip of him using his own voice.