We also get the sense, throughout the movie, that a lonely Wonka can’t take the loneliness anymore, and has been steeling himself for his first human contact in years. Yet when the pressure’s on and the children are finally around him, the only feeling he gets, much to his dismay, is one of revulsion. He wants to like people and make friends by showing them his one-of-a-kind toys, but he can’t. So he inadvertently treats them to a tour of weirdness, with each stop to see something off-kilter turning into an opportunity for him to misbehave, until he’s finally fed up with the children and turns downright maniacal.
Adding to the fun is that all five children (except the eponymous C.) are the monstrous little brats that Hans Christian Anderson enjoyed killing off. Veruca Salt is a spoiled rich girl; Violet Beauregarde is the fiery, trophy-winning go-getter offspring of an unblinking, botoxed soccer mom; Augustus Glimpte is a bulging, red-dimpled blimp with chocolate perpetually smeared on his face; and Mike Teavee is a mean-spirited video game addict. Teavee is probably the most interesting: he’s immensely intelligent yet completely unimaginative. Knowledge is something to be acquired just so he can make others look foolish. He treats the real world as if it’s television: he says terrible things, but only because he’s forgotten that real people can hear him, and he’s just generally nasty because, well, what’s television good for besides making ourselves feel smart by making everyone else look stupid? Their parents aren’t much better; it’s fun watching the great James Fox (as Mr. Salt) maintain his dignity in impossible situations.
Charlie is the one good child, a poor boy (I mean reeeeeeally poor) played with quiet certainty by Freddie Highmore, who co-starred with Depp in last year’s “Finding Neverland.” The effectiveness of Highmore’s performance is measured by how low-key it is. Solemn as real boys are and movie children are seldom portrayed, he observes, watches, keeps his own council, and when he finally speaks, he is sheepish, uncertain, frozen with nerves, his weight shifting from foot to foot as his eyes dart from side to side. He takes with him his grandfather (David Kelly, the naked guy from “Waking Ned Devine”), who long ago worked for Wonka.
What also makes this “Chocolate Factory” more satisfying than its predecessor is its ending. Both tours of the factory end with Wonka making Charlie a bargain that is at least vaguely Faustian. The first time through, Charlie accepts blindly because it’s the end of the movie and apparently he hasn’t been paying attention to what a freak this guy is. This time around, Charlie’s a brighter bulb and says “no, you’re a freak.” The lesson Willy learns from Charlie (instead of the other way around) is that walling out the rest of the world and becoming a tyrant of a private universe operated by clones is not healthy. We are social beasts meant to interact with one another.
This leads to a coda not included in the previous movie or Roald Dahl’s novel that, while somewhat mawkish, is also surprisingly effective. The coda has to do with Wonka’s own past (also original to this film), and the fun thing about it is how silly and sincere it is at the same time. Because of the “Star Wars” prequels and the proliferation of superhero movies, moviegoers have seen a lot of origin stories or “backstories” lately, in which a man’s entire adult character is inadequately explained through one or two childhood events. I think Tim Burton has always found this kind of oversimplification amusing and never uses it at quite face value. (Batman and the Joker get in an argument about who made whom first, for example.) As Wonka mutters “daddy” again and again, and gets a dreamy look in his eye for a close-up as the screen goes wavy, it’s pretty obvious that Burton is making a parody of backstories in general. Wonka’s flashbacks show him as a child in extensive headgear, under the heel of his domineering dentist father (Christopher Lee, no less), and include two throwaway sight gags of amazing silliness. Then Wonka snaps back into the present. “Sorry, I was having a flashback,” he says. “Do you have them often?” he is asked. “Increasingly,” he replies. Oh yes, and not only do the characters not age in flashbacks that cover 15, 20, or even 35 years, they also appear in the exact same clothes.
All this is set to terrific sets, sounds, and effects, helmed by Spielberg’s frequent production designer Alex McDowell. Charlie lives in the requisite slanted Tim Burton house and, since his mother is played by Helena Bonham-Carter, we can’t be sure if she’s in costume or if Burton just filmed what she was wearing that day. The song-and-dance routines provided by the dwarves, using Dahl’s original lyrics, are over-the-top and seem jammed in and out-of-place. But I can’t help feeling this is to simulate, in us, how uncomfortable and unnerved the children must feel to watch the dwarves run out of nowhere to start singing.
The movie’s one weakness is that the repetitive nature of Dahl’s story is better suited for the page than the screen. We watch one child find a golden ticket, then another, then another, then another, then another. Inside the factory we watch one child meet an ironic end, then another, then another, then another. Fairy tales are like that, but somehow it’s never quite worked on the screen. That’s what makes the coda so much fun: we can genuinely feel ourselves jumping off the track and wonder what’s going to happen next as we leave the factory.
And kudos to Burton for getting off the beaten path. I left his last movie, 2003’s “Big Fish,” liking it, but my opinion has steadily declined since then. That movie was a little too uncritical of its central character. “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” doesn’t make that mistake. Maybe it’s a bit of self-examination on Burton’s part: he has always held himself as a kind of Willy Wonka, ruling a demonic private universe with an iron fist, and with each subsequent film making greater refinements to a hermetic world that has less and less to do with reality. Maybe “Charlie” is his way of admitting that maybe he should let some sun in.
Finished Monday, August 1st, 2005
Copyright © 2005 Friday & Saturday Night
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