Wonderstruck

The extraordinary Millicent Simmonds in the new film directed by Todd Haynes

The best part about watching a movie you know nothing about, having never seen the trailer, vaguely knowing the actors in the cast, is the thrill of discovery, of coming into a story with fresh eyes, willing to be taken to another world. "Wonderstruck", which was directed by Todd Haynes, and written and adapted for the screen by Brian Selznick based on his own children's book from 2011, does take you away, to two very different worlds. Two stories, one, about a young deaf girl named Rose (Millicent Simmonds) in 1927 New Jersey, the other, about a young boy named Ben (Oakes Fegley) in 1977 Minnesota, are interwoven, bleeding into one another. Rose's journey is told silently, in striking black and white cinematography, Ben's, is a kaleidoscope of color, blasted with a rock and roll and disco soundtrack. Both are on a similar quest, Rose, to find her idol, a silent screen actress named Lillian Mayhew (Julianne Moore, in multiple roles), Ben, to find his father. These themes, of deafness, self-discovery, friendship, and family are complex, surprising for a supposed children's movie, but they are told with an emotional vitality that can really only be felt when telling stories about a child's experience. The director, Todd Haynes, has a delicacy and sensitivity that is needed for this type of storytelling, the emotions he creates are pure and the images can be overwhelming. He fills the screen with his young actor's faces, especially Millicent Simmonds as the young Rose, who is deaf in real life and was discovered for this movie. The portion with her acts like a short silent picture from the past, hazy in memory, and methodical, the musical score by Carter Burwell mimicking every emotion that flashes over her face.

For me, the most remarkable aspect of "Wonderstruck" was the attention to detail, and the craft in recreating the New York City, and the Museum of Natural History specifically, of 1927 and 1977. After the film's first 25 minutes which puts the narrative into motion, our heroine and hero get to New York and once there, I stopped caring so much about the plot of the journey, and started to purely feel the journey. The producer, Christine Vachon, spoke to us after the screening, and explained that they shot on location, which was a shock. New York of 1977 does not exist anymore. The cinematographer Ed Lachmann, and the production designer Mark Friedberg, scouted locations, discovering corners and blocks in the deepest parts of Brooklyn and Queens to bring a sense of realism to the story. Without New York City the story wouldn't have the same excitement and thrill and the images that Hayne's creates of the chaos in the streets and the explosion of colors from the gritty Penn Station and Upper West Side of 1977, along with the floating hats and cavernous shadows of the downtown scene of 1927 enhance the story of Rose and Ben. "Wonderstruck" was a surprise. The best surprises creep up on you, and linger, the knowledge of the care that went into it just as important as the surprise itself. This movie, a fairytale of childhood, I imagine will linger with me as well, it's optimism and lyricism something unusual, something we only believe in as children, but yearn for so desperately as adults.