Wonder Wheel: Far from wonderful

Wonder Wheel (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and sexuality
By Derrick Bang

Toward the conclusion of Woody Allen’s newest dive into the pool of mid-century nostalgia, Kate Winslet’s Ginny — having descended into full-blown Norma Desmond madness — responds to an accusation by petulantly whining, “Oh, God; spare me the bad drama.”

My feelings precisely.

As the summer progresses, Mickey (Justin Timberlake) begins to realize that Ginny
(Kate Winslet) is placing far too much emotional weight on their clandestine affair.

Wonder Wheel is Allen’s homage to shrill, over-the-top melodrama: a contrived piffle that seeks to outdo the likes of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Sunset Boulevard, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and their ilk. On top of which, the story is told by a character who — having informed us that he’s a budding poet and playwright given to florid exaggeration — clearly is an unreliable narrator.

Even allowing for all that, Allen’s film wallows in a swamp of soggy excess that surpasses the worst afternoon television soaps.

Which is a shame, because there’s much to recommend Wonder Wheel, starting with Vittorio Storaro’s gorgeous cinematography and Santa Loquasto’s impeccable period production design, which deliver a level of visual opulence rarely seen since Douglas Sirk’s lavish 1950s melodramas (Magnificent Obsession, Imitation of Life and others).

Even though all these characters recognize that their Coney Island home is past its prime, things still look terrific, in a fading-glory sort of way. The film takes its title from the massive Ferris wheel always standing vigil in the background, like a silent Greek chorus.

Ginny, pushing 40 and prone to migraines, works a dead-end job as a waitress in the Boardwalk clam shack. She’s married to Humpty (Jim Belushi), a recovering alcoholic who manages the merry-go-round in the amusement arcade. They live in a ramshackle apartment directly above the shooting gallery, the incessant pop-pop-pops frequently aggravating her debilitating headaches.

They bicker, snipe, squabble and quarrel in the manner of Ralph and Alice Kramden in The Honeymooners — also very 1950s — but with very little mitigating affection. It’s the second marriage for both, and we sense they’ve remained together mostly due to weary resignation.

They do a poor job of managing her bratty adolescent son, Richie (Jack Gore), a bad-seed monster and budding pyromaniac who loves setting fires below the wooden boardwalk. Everything concerning this little twerp seems to have migrated in from an entirely different film; his presence adds nothing to the core narrative, and his dangerous “hobby” is just sorta cast adrift during the third act ... rather sloppy, even for Allen.

This miserable dynamic is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Carolina (Juno Temple), Humpty’s long-estranged daughter from his first marriage: banished from his life five years back when, at the age of 20, she foolishly married a bona-fide, Mobbed-up gangster. Having now come to her senses and fled that life, she has returned, penniless, to the only place she hopes to find refuge.

And safety. Rather than face a five-year prison sentence, she spilled her guts to the FBI, which has made her a marked woman; she knows her ex wants her dead.

All of this is related by our chronicler, Mickey (Justin Timberlake), a World War II Navy veteran-turned-liberal arts university student spending his summer as a beach lifeguard. He’s also having a tempestuous affair with Ginny: a clandestine relationship that has rekindled her lust for life, and which has prompted all sorts of foolish fantasies such as abandoning her marriage and following him to Bora Bora (any thought of her troubled son apparently shunted aside).

This plot contrivance plays havoc with point of view. As an omniscient narrator, Mickey would be privileged to see, know and tell all; but as a participant, he’d be privy only to events taking place in his presence. Allen insists on having it both ways, which makes the unnatural narrative even clumsier.

That’s maddening, because there’s no shortage of powerful and persuasive acting here.

Although Winslet dominates both the screen and the story, Ginny is difficult — if not impossible — to like. Any vestiges of sympathy we might dredge up, for her unhappy circumstances, are vastly overshadowed by her selfishness and bursts of spontaneous cruelty. And yet Winslet makes a magnificent shrike in the Bette Davis/Joan Crawford mold, chewing up the scenery with relish, pickles and onions, affecting a Joisey accent and an embroidered acting style also out of the 1950s.

She delivers a prolonged, single-take soliloquy at the climax — source of the quote at the top of this review — which is breathtaking.

And yet Winslet is very nearly outshone by Temple, who imbues Carolina with a degree of sweet pathos that’s both endearing and heartbreaking. We care deeply for this young woman, doing her best to make up for ghastly prior mistakes. Temple makes her gentle, attentive, just flirty enough, and — most important — genuinely willing to do whatever is necessary to fit into this dysfunctional household.

We sense that, under better circumstances, Carolina could become the warm embrace that restores order and hope to her father and step-family ... but such is not to be.

Alas, she catches Mickey’s eye — just as he catches hers — and suddenly we’re in Mrs. Robinson territory, which prompts Ginny to add enraged jealousy to her many other sins.

Timberlake is convincing as Mickey, who remains charming and sympathetic despite his rather casual approach toward women (which he’d no doubt defend as being very hip and Greenwich Village). Timberlake maintains an earnest candor that compensates for Mickey’s blithe, second-guessing efforts to justify his actions, like a playwright trying — perhaps unsuccessfully — to get his characters to behave a certain way.

Belushi is a snarling clone of the young Marlon Brando, down to the wife-beater T-shirt, but Humpty isn’t a one-note guy; once past his dismay over Carolina’s return, he displays a softer side that wants the best for his daughter. In so doing, he also wins our sympathy.

Steve Schirripa and Tony Sirico, still fondly remembered from The Sopranos, have fun sending up those wise guy roles as shady characters who come looking for Carolina.

Allen has long been intrigued by the Hitchcockian circumstances that could lead “ordinary folks” to contemplate heinous acts, having previously explored this dynamic in (most notably) 1989’s Crimes and Misdemeanors and 2005’s Match Point. But he’s less successful here, because the characters and narrative don’t gel in an organic manner; everything feels manipulated and false.

Powerful individual scenes notwithstanding, as a whole this film is far less than the sum of its parts. It too frequently feels like the early, out-of-town rehearsal of a stage play that needs heavy re-writes.