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Wonder Wheel | Film Review
**
Dir: Woody Allen
Starring: Kate Winslet, Justin Timberlake, Juno Temple
(12A, 1hr 41mins)
In true fashion for Woody Allen, this story follows his passion for melodramatic stories as a Coney Island lifeguard (Justin Timberlake) tells the tale of his love affair with a woman many years his senior (Kate Winslet) and the visitor who turns their lives upside down.
This is by all accounts a Woody Allen film, layered with voiceover narrating, love affairs, nostalgia and melodrama – Allen is back at it again with his usual form, but it’s certainly no Manhattan or Blue Jasmine. The nostalgic tone with which Allen tells this tale is wonderfully swooning, the characters fittingly complex, but there is a lack of care given to the story. The desired effect is of a swooning melodrama but what breaks this apart is the stilted and neck-jerking dialogue. The witty, sharp and echoing notes from the likes of Annie Hall are all but forgotten, the dialogue is wooden, clunky and artificial; it puts the brakes on every performance in the film.
As a result, few of the performances are even believable, most sounding overplayed and over-written. The characters feel forced, through the overwritten development of their stories and a side plot that never capitalizes on its own tension and barely begs interest. The love affairs and jealousy that sustains the plot can only hold interest for wavering periods of time. Winslet does give her all to her part, overshadowing her co-stars; Temple never gets a moment in the limelight, Timberlake figuratively never leaves the water and Belushi is an overcooked caricature.
The fantastical setting of Coney Island barely warrants a footnote: Allen vastly underuses the setting, though he does stage scenes with the same precision that is expected of him. Wonder Wheel is admittedly, surprisingly stylish, with enticing cinematography and a dapper soundtrack to boot. Allen’s nostalgia-driven vision excels in this regard, there is an old-world style of beauty about it, even incorporating older lighting techniques as well as camera work.
Wonder Wheel is an echo of Woody Allen’s filmmaking. Though it is stylishly sharp, enticing and sweeping with a nostalgic flair, the stunted and artificial dialogue pales to Allen’s former work and is uncharacteristically disruptive, damaging the performances. This sits dismally in Allen’s impressive and vast body of work and is largely forgettable. Regardless of the allegations surrounding Allen, this is not a good film.
words JAKE YOUNG