By Anirban Lahiri
Featured in IMDb Critic Reviews
Badly panned by critics and shunned by the average
moviegoers at least in India, Wonder is a close-to-heart film not to be
avoided. Hollywood would not tell tales of everyday life – small dreams,
conflicts, ups and downs, mundane affairs even few years ago. Titanic was a
Bollywood film in Hollywood grandeur. It talked about the old forgotten love,
and union in death, but with an epic setting (and epic disaster) in the
background.
I loved Wonder. I missed the Press Show because of sickness.
However, I was adamant in catching this film in another city – the city of my
ongoing convalescence. This film is about convalescence too – that of the
society, of people’s perception, of identity and love.
What if a short-sized boy with deformed face emerges
quick-witted, sensitive and passionate about science and astronomy? What if he
is continuously bullied in school, because of face and refusal in remaining
meek and silent? How does he deal with all these in the tender, early teenage?
How does his parents, especially his mother, handles all these? Specially when
she has taught him everything he knows? How does his excellently mature late
teenage sister copes with her life as well as his? How do they all fit and
revolt against the conventions of perceptions in society?
That is Wonder. Coming from a writer-cum-screenwriter, the
film deals with values. We may remember, while watching the film, that we
agreed to live together in society because that would guarantee our survival.
The silent pact of making a family, where the siblings support one another, is
more cultural than biological, the film reminds us. Set in a warm glow of
late-autumn sunshine, Wonder shows what running against odds means.
Jacob Tremblay is brilliant in the role of Auggie, the
deformed-face teenager. Izabela Vidovic, in the character of Via, Auggie’s
elder sister, is perfect. Their mother, Isabel, demanded Julia Roberts for the
right reasons. We love to watch such non-excessive acting on the big screen.
The Directorial-Editorial decision of ending each sequence
with a brief black screen tells me how life is punctuated by brief pauses. We
have minimum three or four phases – each of us – sometimes seven or eight.
Sometimes, these phases go completely counter to one another, making us look
like crazy, or multi-dimensional.
But, life is indeed about that! Life is wonder. The biggest
wonder the universe could possible offer us.
Don Burgess’ Cinematography offered a similar punctuation by
painting the frame with rich orange hues, punctuated at the times of doubt and
depression by blue light and props.
There are a lot to say about Wonder; and there is none.
There are certain things in life where words defer meaning. We hear more by
physical engagement, through silence, there.
Please watch this film if you can still find it at a theatre
nearby, if you want to see, for a change, how love can bring magic to the lives
of mundane people.
Readers, please feel free to share your opinion by leaving your comments. As always your valuable thoughts are highly appreciated!
Rating: 7/10
Wonder - Official Trailer (YouTube)
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