Wonka

Probably every kid who ever read Roald Dahl’s Charlie & the Chocolate Factory wondered at some point what the deal was with Willy Wonka, the indelibly weird chocolatier. Follow that thought and you’ve arrived at Wonka, a dutifully whimsical prequel imagining Wonka's early days from Paul King (the director of the much-loved Paddington pictures) and his co-screenwriter Simon Farnaby. It takes only moments into the film, when star Timothée Chalamet first opens his mouth to sing, to discover Wonka’s two fatal errors: The songs are not good, and the guy singing them is even worse.

That feels crummy to say out loud, and not at all in the spirit of Wonka, a cheery thing that wants you to believe the world can be full of wonder, our better angels mostly beat out the bad voices in our head, and cartoon villains get what’s coming to them. But there’s a reason Chalamet is our No. 1 boy for emo brooding (see: Call Me By Your Name, Dune): That’s what suits his talents best. In playing young Wonka, a purple-jacketed fount of optimism, Chalamet brings the same “I’m game for anything” enthusiasm as when he’s hosting Saturday Night Live – and the same amateurishness, too. That’s an odd thing to say about an Academy Award-nominated international star, but the greater affront to me is how many capable musical theatre performers there must be out there grinding their teeth at another song-and-dance gig that got away from them.

Then again, even a Broadway veteran would struggle to do much with the material. The original songs by Neil Hannon of Irish indie popsters the Divine Comedy, with lyrics by King and Farnaby, bear titles – “A Hatful of Dreams,” "A World of Your Own," “For a Moment” – that anticipate their forgetfulness. There are bright spots: The film’s baddies, a chocolate cartel led by Paterson Joseph’s Arthur Slugworth, vaudeville their way through the spunky “Sweet Tooth.” In the blessed relief between songs, the plot takes some sweetly daffy turns, and the supporting cast is stocked with reliable comic hands. Still, we end where we began – with Chalamet weakly warbling – only the exit music is “Pure Imagination,” first sung so memorably by the original Willy Wonka, Gene Wilder, in 1971. It’s borrowed magic.