This year’s New York City Film Festival was held from September 28 to October 14, just a block away from the Macaulay Building in Alice Tully Hall. I caught the premiere of Wonder Wheel; student tickets cost $50.00, though students can get discounted tickets for $7 to $10 using vouchers if they wait at exclusive locations. During film premieres, the actors and director briefly came onto the stage to greet the small audience.
Woody Allen’s Wonder Wheel steers into 1950s Coney Island in a melodramatic, snippy kind of way. Equipped with sunshine, ice cream, and pepsi-cola signs, it saunters into a world of failure from different, albeit conventional, perspectives. All the archetypal figures are present in a tightly wound cast: the unhappily married woman (and failed actress) in a mid-life crisis (Kate Winslet), the abusive drunk husband (Jim Belushi), a troublesome adolescent (Jack Gore), the hopeless romantic novelist pining for a story to tell (Justin Timberlake), and the pretty young girl who married too young and was starting fresh (Juno Temple). The actors play their roles theatrically, harping on the metafictional note Allen builds the film on. The film often alludes to the infamous Sopranos series, with actors Tony Sirico and Steve Schrippa reprising their roles as gangsters.
The film follows young narrator (Timberlake) recalling the story of when he had an affair with a married woman (Winslet) and fell in love with her step-daughter (Temple). Italian mobsters planned to kill the daughter. Timberlake as the narrator breaking the fourth wall did not assist the plot. Throughout the film, he dotes on histrionic moments that ultimately build to a shallow story, despite the elaborate dialogue, which often alludes to other plays and Greek tragedies, like Oedipus.
You should always try to detach the art from its creator, but it is hard to do so with respect to Allen’s own controversial background (he married his step-daughter); there are subtle wisecracks at incest throughout the film. Though much of the film’s hollywood-esque tone begins to weigh you down, Winslet’s vivacity particularly manages to shine through. When all the others begin to lose their charm, you cannot help but focus on Winslet’s pained countenances, the sign of a seasoned and exceptional actress.
Among more of the profound moments, the young arsonist boy (obsessed with watching movies) ends the film poetically with a fire on the beach. The scene speaks to the human experience of oscillating between the chaos and blandness that dominates life.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the film is Vittorio Storaro’s surrealist cinematography, in which he plays with warm and cool-toned lighting. This alone makes the film worth watching. It takes us to many familiar places all set against the backdrop of a bright ferris wheel.
Prior to the screening, Storaro noted how films were about how “people interact,” in addition to simply “telling stories.” He succeeds in synchronizing the atmosphere with the characters’ inner conflicts. There are moments under the boardwalk or in a room where the lighting shifts so gracefully, the audience becomes enamored with the setting and delivery of the words. Two particular instances involve Winslet’s monologue of her backstory (as a young wife who cheated on her husband) and a scene in which Winslet and Temple have a tense discussion about Timberlake (who they are both seeing, unbeknownst to the latter).
The sound editing was also specifically excellent, with scenes emphasizing the jarring shots of bullets at carnival games, all the way to the waves crashing against the shore. However, considering the overwhelming dominance of white narratives in today’s film industry, one questions whether we need another film like Wonder Wheel added to list, no matter its visual allure.
