Wonder Wheel (2017)
Directed by Woody Allen
The story of four characters whose lives intertwine amid the hustle and bustle of the Coney Island amusement park in the 1950s: Ginny, an emotionally volatile former actress now working as a waitress in a clam house; Humpty, Ginny’s rough-hewn carousel operator husband; Mickey, a handsome young lifeguard who dreams of becoming a playwright; and Carolina, Humpty’s long-estranged daughter, who is now hiding out from gangsters at her father’s apartment.
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What critics compared Wonder Wheel to
Still, there have been highlights in his recent work - Midnight in Paris (2011), Blue Jasmine (2013), Cafe Society (2016), and his Amazon TV series, Crisis in Six Scenes (2016), have all had something to offer.
Surely someone with his penchant for creativity could still create something unique that can exist within the stylistic lines of a Woody Allen movie—only a few years ago, Midnight in Paris (2011) proved this spectacularly.
Now in his sixth decade of filmmaking—and that means a new movie every year—Woody Allen has become a dependable toggler between two modes: unchecked nostalgia (Midnight in Paris) and spikier stories about self-delusional pretenders (Blue Jasmine).
The film lacks the joy of “Midnight in Paris,” and the witty charm of “Magic in the Moonlight,” or even the dark intrigue of “Match Point.”
Blue Jasmine was one of the only two worthy Woody flicks of the past decade (the other, of course, was Midnight in Paris), and its rather unflattering look at a shrill and insecure woman was negated by Cate Blanchett’s Oscar-winning turn in the central role as well as interesting supporting characters vividly brought to life by Sally Hawkins, Andrew Dice Clay and others.
For every Midnight in Paris (2012) and Blue Jasmine (2013) we get, we also have to deal with twice as many that we would all be better off not remembering.
On the verge of being shifted out of the Irish mental hospital where she’s been happily ensconsed for 40 years, Rose McNulty (Vanessa Redgrave) digs her heels in and begins bending the ear of her shrink (Eric Bana, in fine, accented form), telling him about her life during the war and the romantic ties she had with the local village priest (a very good Theo James, unrecognisable here as the stud from the Divergent films) and a British Spitfire pilot (Jack Reynor).