Dir/Writer: Woody Allen | Cast: Kate Winslet, Jim Belushi, Justin Timberlake, Juno Temple, Jack Gore, David Krumholtz | US | Melodrama | 101′
When the world desperately needs a slice of his comedy genius Woody Allen delivers a miserable melodrama, a metaphor for modern life – or perhaps it’s just the mood he is in with the current wave of abuse allegations rocking Hollywood.
So he returns to the 1950s and his childhood days in Coney Island where sad and frustrated housewife Ginny (Kate Winslet) is living out her life, but not her dreams. The Neon-lit shadow of the Ferris wheel sheds a Lucozade-tinged light on the chintzy interiors of the home she shares with her pyromaniac son (Jack Gore), obese husband Humpty (Belushi) and his newly-arrived daughter Carolina (Juno Temple), a marked woman who has just left her gangland husband. Ginny and Humpty are overblown alcoholics and there’s no joy in their lives, but while he is content with his fishing trips and games with the guys, Ginny is an unfulfilled actress wasting her life waitressing in their boardwalk clam diner. Then she falls for a perma-tanned literary-minded lifeguard in the shape of Micky, a desperately miscast Justin Timberlake.
To be frank, this is Ginny’s fillm and without the voluptuous emotional heavyweight Winslet, the film would fail to resonate. She is the meaty Maine lobster in this claustrophobic clam bake-off, with Belushi the French fries, Timberlake the healthy salad and Juno Temple the frothy vanilla milkshake. We’re persuaded that Mickey lives in Greenwich village where he reads Eugene O’Neill, but he’s strait outta modern Memphis and unconvincing in this role. The two fall in lust until Ginny gets heavy and Carolina frolics into focus whereupon Mickey is smitten, realising the reality of the age-gap. “When it comes to love, we often turn out to be our own worst enemy” is one of the more telling lines.
Wonder Wheel is a shade overlong with some scenes lingering uncomfortably, but the redolent musical choices and perfect-pitched performances are convincing and heartfelt. Vittorio Storaro’s wizardry with his colour wheel bathes everything in a neon-suffused technicolour rainbow tracking Ginny’s emotional ups and downs as the wheel spins from orgasmic bliss to histrionic meltdown. The placid rain-soaked beachscapes provide thoughtful contrast and relief to this bold and believable portrait of a woman driven to the edge. And you feel for her. MT
ON RELEASE NATIONWIDE FROM 9 MARCH 2018