Pretty Good

Beautiful, moving film.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

No one has been treading water and barely keeping his head above it like Woody Allen's film career. The one time giant of cinema in generous terms is hitting about 200 over his last 20 films as he fields superstars and hires the best lensmen and offers up impeccable set design and costuming. His writing however has become a threadbare transparency of past films, the dialogue lacking the wit and humor, found in his prime, nowhere to be found lately.Wonder Wheel is a glum Radio Days about an adulterous affair between a Coney Island lifeguard (Justin Timberlake) and a waitress (Kate Winslet) married to a carousel operator (Jim Belushi) living next to The Wonder Wheel. Matters get complicated when a prodigal daughter by another wife shows up at their place with the mob in pursuit. Things calm briefly but explode when the daughter begins to date the lifeguard. Winslet does the best she can with Allen's meager script that seems to repeat itself in the chaotic slap happy domicile scenes that come across both sloppy and artificial. With a convincing accent and weary facade it would be the equal of oscar winner Blanchette with healthier dialogue. The limited Belushi with Allen's help comes across whiny and annoying while lifeguard Timberlake's cavalier attitude in the face of tragedy fails to endear him as well. Juno Temple as the hon on the run and a leitmotif of a firebug son also appear as Allen ghosts from the past.Cinematographer Storaro works his usual wondrous magic but the cast he showcases remains stranded with Allen's anemic script and Wonder Wheel barely turns because of it.

Kate Winslet gives a magnificent performance, worthy of an Academy Award. The screenplay is another Woody Allen masterpiece. It's too bad that more people don't recognize what an incredible talent he is. We are lucky to be gifted with so many wonderful movies, each a piece of our own psyche. Each a mirror into our own soul.

Act One, Scene One: The introduction by the narrator. Act One, Scene Two: The Apartment. This Woody Allen film looks like a play, is played like a play, therefore, it is a play. Sometimes I couldn't tell at times, whether I was on Broadway or sitting on my living room couch. If you like Woody Allen movies, then you'll like this play. If you don't, then pass on this one.

I can see coming to this a bit later why it got some negative reviews and didn't do well with audiences: our main character here (as seen through the eyes of lifeguard Justin Timberlake), as played by Kate Winslet, is a miserable person. I don't know how much of that translated as her being just unhappy or that her misery turned her so much into being unlikable that it turned off audiences. It's certainly not an easy movie to take in that regard, as Ginny is not someone who is only in a loveless marriage (that may be arguable too as Jim Belushi's character has love for her, just not much on the return side), or with a hopeless kid (who is a pyro, which I'll get to in a moment), but who's dreams were completely dashed for... one of those ordinary, hard-knock lives that, well, we all leave. I think if Woody Allen had tried to present this script to Brian Cox in ADAPTATION he'd have been yelled at and forced out of his class.While Ginny is unhappy and ultimately does some bad things (one that she can never walk back from even if she tried), I think it was wise for Allen to cast Kate Winslet. Like Cate Blanchett a couple years ago in Blue Jasmine, this is a BIG character in how she projects herself, only her delusions of grandeur only come out when she isn't quite so unhappy around the Timberlake character. She wanted to be an actress but had to give it up, as so many of us give up the things we want to be or strive for, to... marry and have a kid (though a former husband/lover is alluded to as well). On top of this, the whole surrounding I think has to be deliberate; set this movie on a regular street corner and it wouldn't have the same pop. Here, there may be a suggestion of the carnival going on with the setting on Coney Island - Allen channeling Fellini and other giant-emotional Italian filmmakers but on a different level - as there's all this fun around everyone and yet life is the continuous struggle it always is, and compounded by that.But back to Winslet, there's something about her as a presence on screen where you instinctively want to feel sympathy for her, and her star quality lends itself to that (maybe Allen was aiming for a sort of Joan Crawford thing here too, I can't be sure). I think with someone else, it would be much more difficult to watch what Ginny does and becomes her, the decisions she makes with this "poetic" lifeguard, and that the tone is SO theatrical. The lighting reflects this too, as Storaro in some scenes will change the lighting as if it were on stage, as characters like Ginny talk about something and it becomes redder or bluer or more orange or white. The setting helps to accentuate this, and I liked that aspect of it. And along with Winslet, Belushi, Temple and Timberlake are playing to the balcony.Again, I can see why this doesn't work for a lot of people. There were times watching it when I thought it was going TOO big even within the context Allen had set up. And it's not exactly the newest kind of ground for Allen (though in full disclosure, infidelity dramas are like catnip for me). But I still felt engaged because the writing of them was interesting, and I found it fascinating how Allen was navigating this look and feel that was hyper-realistic, of the color scheme being so bright and popping out like out of a selection of postcards from the era, and yet having dialog that attempts at least to stay in realism... except when monologues come flying and the theatrical comes around again. And Ginny's son fits in as a running-gag as metaphor; no matter what traditional punishment comes (spanking) or in psychological ways (therapy), the kid will continue to burn things because the fire is... something that's tangible, I suppose (love doesn't seem to be there at any rate - do we ever see Ginny actually show affection for her son? Doesn't seem like it to me, with the migranes and self-involvement).I'm not sure it all works, but enough of it did, plus the performances, that I'd put it in the category (like Cafe Society) as a very strong minor work (or a decent major one).