PG-13: thematic content including some sexuality, language, and smoking

Amazon Studios

1 Hr and 41 Minutes

Directed/Written By Woody Allen

Cast: Jim Belushi, Juno Temple, Justin Timberlake, Kate Winslet

INTRO: Woody Allen. As a filmmaker he’s beloved. As a person…..well we don’t really like to talk about him as a person. The guy doesn't watch his own movies; he has weird views on romance; and oh yeah, HE MARRIED HIS DAUGHTER AFTER DIVORCING MIA FARROW! Some of his personal life experience with relationships started to bleed into his work, and it wasn’t enjoyable. Ever seen ‘Whatever Works’ with Larry David? That has to be the most cringest film of Allen’s filmography. That was until I saw his latest, ‘Wonder Wheel.'

"Wonder Wheel" tells the story of four characters whose lives intertwine amid the hustle and bustle of the Coney Island amusement park in the 1950s: Ginny (Kate Winslet), an emotionally volatile former actress now working as a waitress in a clam house; Humpty (Jim Belushi), Ginny’s rough-hewn carousel operator husband; Mickey (Justin Timberlake), a handsome young lifeguard who dreams of becoming a playwright; and Carolina (Juno Temple), Humpty’s long-estranged daughter, who is now hiding out from gangsters at her father’s apartment. Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro captures a tale of passion, violence, and betrayal that plays out against the picturesque tableau of 1950s Coney Island.

THE GOOD

WHERE WAS THIS CONEY ISLAND IN MY LIFE?!

With the movie’s setting taking place at Coney Island during the 50s, I love how Allen made Coney Island look like the greatest place on Earth. Coney Island might as well be Disney World in his eyes. It’s bright, colorful, and such a visual marvel to look at. As a Brooklyn Boy, it makes me want to go back in time and visit Coney Island in its prime. Today, Coney Island is sort of a dump, so I appreciate how Allen was visually able to capture the essence of the amusement park when it was in its heyday.

EXPRESSIONAL LIGHTS

What I do love about this movie is Allen’s use of color with when Jinny delivers a monologue to Mickey and opening turns orange as she is in the limelight. When Carolina starts asking about Mickey to Jinny as she starts getting jealous, the color becomes but as you see her getting stressed and heated. Jinny clouds her judgment due to her affection towards Mickey so every time Carolina mentions his name, she turns red with anger. Her name might as well be Nick Jonas because she gets jealous.

A BRILLIANT BELUSHI

Out of everyone in the film, one of the performances that lasted an impact on me was no other than Jim Belushi who gives one of the best supporting performances I’ve seen this year.Right when he walks through the door, he brilliantly chews up every piece of scenery that he can in the best way imaginable. It makes me go, “Boy I missed Jim Belushi. WOW, I really missed Jim Belushi.” You have this complicated New Yorker dad who works & lives at the amusement park that is proud of seeing his daughter again for the first time in several years after her departure. He may sound charming on the surface, but believe it or not he’s a mixture of Fred Flintstone and Ralph Kramden. He’s Fred Flintstone on how he interacts and provide love for his family, but when he’s intoxicated or pissed, the man turns into Ralph Kramden as he threatens his wife and her son, but boy does he love his daughter. He’s so great at being this Jackie Gleeson type character that if they ever do Honeymooner’s reboot, I would suggest that they get Belushi because he’s friggin Ralph Kramden.

THE BAD

HE’S BRINGING CREEPY BACK

With every movie he directs, Allen would have an actor portray a Woody Allen-esque like character who embodies all of his mannerisms and dialect as they narrate the story or have them as the main lead of it. ‘Midnight in Paris’ was Owen Wilson as Woody Allen. ‘Café Society’ was Jesse Eisenberg as Woody Allen, and here we have Justin Timberlake as pretty much Woody Allen. Whereas those characters had charm and some complexity especially with the situation that is going on around them, Justin Timberlake’s character Mickey is downright unlikable from the moment he begins to insert himself into the story. The movie is centered on a 39-year-old married woman having an affair with a much younger man who narrates the story (similar to the narrative format of every Allen feature). That sounds fine, but what throws you right off is when Mickey he sees Jinny for the first time walking on the beach as he immediately states to the audience right before he goes in to talk to her, “I don’t know what attracts me to her. She looked desperate….and vulnerable.” Right at that moment, the movie completely lost me. I’m sorry, but those are the words of somewhere that can be perceived as a predator who has no respect for women (or in modern slang, a ‘fucboi’). From that point, the uncomfortable cringe-fest of ‘Wonder Wheel’ begins because this is all written by Woody Allen and this is how he sees women, and it is angering. I don’t care if you’re as beautiful as Justin Timberlake, and you can be romantic as hell, but if someone goes to a woman because of how 'vulnerable' she looks, there is no redeemable quality to you at all.

ALL I HEAR IS ALLEN

If you’ve seen three or four Woody Allen films, you’ve practically seen them all. Several ones stand out to me personally such as ‘Annie Hall,' ‘Sleeper,' ‘Café Society,' ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona,' ‘Bananas,' and ‘Blue Jasmine.' ‘Wonder Wheel’ bleeds every element from the past 10 Woody Allen movies and blends it into one unstable mess of a drama film that you can predict the events from happening. The central plot is very similar to Nancy Meyer’s ‘Somethings Gotta Give,' but instead, its a young guy getting attracted to the younger girl while dating her stepmom even though the majority of the film focuses on the mom. I know Justin Timberlake is attractive and a good actor, but with every word of dialogue that comes from his mouth, all I hear is Woody Allen’s voice. Even though he doesn’t have the mannerisms of Allen like actors such as Larry David and Owen Wilson, you can clearly hear through the dialect of Timberlake that this is Woody Allen. You know the new video game, ‘Super Mario Odyssey’ where the gimmick is when Mario throws his cap to any being, he possesses their body? Well, this feels like Allen threw his cap on Timberlake’s head and possessed his body every second he’s on screen. For some reason, it has to be this guy who is aspiring to be a writer and is a huge dreamer of being a great writer. HOW MANY GODDAMN TIMES IS ALLEN GOING TO HAVE THIS TIRED RETREAD OF HIS MALE LEAD AS AN ASPIRING WRITER?! It’s incredibly annoying at this point.

TOO MANY SUBPLOTS, MUCH LITTLE SUBSTANCE

If you watch a Woody Allen movie one of the first things that you can catch early on is how much the man LOOOOOOVES Tennessee Williams for a lot of his films have the narrative elements of a Williams play. This man is trying so hard to be Tennessee Williams for every single movie that has to deal with an affair; this ultimately becomes ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ like every single film Allen made the last ten years. What makes this film egregious on top of the familiar narrative that we've seen a million times is the additional nonessential layers added so that it won’t be viewed as a ‘Streetcar’ knockoff. WELL MR. ALLEN,

There are so many different subplots that is either beneficial to the plot or just or just pads out the running time. The you have elements involving Juno Temple’s character Carolina being on the run from the mob which is great and drives a huge turning point for the third act. But then you have this repetitious running gag of Jinny’s son playing with matches and lighting various things on fire which occurs around five times, and it has no meaning to the story other than the fact that this boy is sadistically psychotic.

I CAN’T BE IN LOVE WITH KATE WINSLET’S PERFORMANCE

For the most part, the driving force of the film is Kate Winslet. For the majority of the film, we see the situation from Jinny’s point of view. Mickey may narrate the movie, (for a while) but this is Jinny’s story. There is no doubt about it that Kate Winslet is amazing and does a fantastic job considering if this wasn’t a Woody Allen movie. Since this is, there’s no circling around that the performance Winslet gives in this movie is eerily reminiscent of Cate Blanchett’s performance in Blue Jasmine. At first, you like her approach to, but after she gives her first full monologue, you feel that this is the same performance Blanchett did. Jinny is the same kind of flawed as Jasmine where she talks too much for her own good, she overreacts to a minimum situation, and most of all they both drink and smoke in distress. They are one of the same regarding both characteristics and personality that the only thing that's different is their family and their setting. But as far as I’m concerned, Kate Winslet is pulling a Cate Blanchett, and it's not impressive. If she gets that nomination for “Best Actress,” then go right ahead.

YOU KNOW WHAT? I'LL JUST GO OUT AND SAY IT

Right, when the film hits the third act, the story doesn’t only go off into the familiar realm of ‘Blue Jasmine,' but it goes on to become what Blue Jasmine was inspired by: ‘A Streetcar Named Desire.’ There is a long confrontational scene that goes off the same rails as “Desire” note by note and its framed perfectly, but acted well but honestly is not that engaging because it is the same kind of ending as most of Allen’s dramas. If you’ve seen around six of Allen’s movies, you will know that this is the same kind of finale that he’s known for. If this is your first Woody Allen movie, you might love this, but do yourself a favor and just watch ‘Blue Jasmine.'

LAST STATEMENT

Lacking originality due to the familiar narrative tropes director Woody Allen is known for a while having an unevenly balanced thread of a story, ‘Wonder Wheel’ displays the. Try again next year man.

Rating: 2/5 | 46%

Super Scene: Jinny gets jelly

Wonder Wheel Review