Who would have thought that, of all people, Timothee Chalamet would turn out to be the most human of all the Willy Wonkas in celluloid history!

Clearly pulling back on the zany weirdness of Johnny Depp’s take in Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), or Gene Wilder’s bulging-eyed enthusiasm from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), this film is a sheer delight.

The two adaptations were from Roald Dahl’s 1964 book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Not Wonka though. This is an original origin story of how Wonka, a young, illiterate, wildly imaginative chocolate-making wiz comes to an unknown European city to make it big.

Chalamet’s Wonka is introduced in song at the start of the film (the songs are by Neil Hannon and the score is by Joby Talbot — and they’re all quite ear-catching). Soon though, the city devours him whole.

Wonka is a better version of Roald Dahl’s books primarily because it is an original story that is wholesome and heartwarming

He loses all his money at the end of the heart-wrenching opening song — which he shrugs off as if it’s nothing, meaning his carefree self has been through the same predicaments before — and then he is hoodwinked by the wicked, cheap hotel owner Mrs. Scrubbit (Olivia Coleman, unexciting in her over-the-top performance) and her henchman Bleacher (Tom Davis, slightly better).

Signing a long parchment with fine print without understanding a word (Wonka is illiterate, if you recall), he finds himself in enormous debt of working for 10,000 days for NOT using the facilities in his dingy room.

Thrown into servitude as a worker in the laundrette that apparently washes and dries the entire city’s clothes, Wonka meets the little girl Noodle, an accountant named Abacus, a plumber named Piper, a comedian called Larry, and the telephone operator Lottie (Calah Lane, Jim Carter, Natasha Rothwell, Rich Fulcher, Rakhee Thakrar) — all of them hoodwinked by Mrs. Scrubbit and Bleacher.

Using his noggin, Wonka finds a way to sneak out with Noodle and set up his business, that fumes the chocolatier cartel of the city — Slugworth, Prodnose and Fickelgruber (Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas, Mathew Baynton) — who, in turn, unleash the chocolate-addicted police chief (Keegan-Michael Key) on him.

Making quick getaways, Wonka finds ways to make his chocolates popular, while learning about other baddies (Rowan Atkinson, wasted, is the corrupt priest Julius), reminiscing about his dead mother (Sally Hawkins) and contending with the small Oompa Loompa called Lofty (Hugh Grant) who has been stealing from his exotic chocolate supplies.

The Oompa Loompas are orange-skinned, green-haired fantasy humanoid creatures of small height and this is their best (and for me, the first non-scary) adaptation in film.

Actually, this is probably the best work in the Wonka-verse (I hope this word doesn’t catch on — there are already too many “film-verses” out there).

Director Paul King, screenwriter Simon Farnby (they worked on Paddington and its sequel), cinematographer Chung Chung-Hoon (Last Night in Soho), production designer Nathan Crowley, costume designer Lindy Hemming and editor Mark Everson are also probably the best team assembled by Warner Bros and producers David Heyman, Alexandra Derbyshire and Luke Kelly, to reimagine the world of Wonka.

The film is a better version of Dahl’s books, primarily because it is an original story that is wholesome and heartwarming — a perfect Christmas title that encapsulates the feeling of the winter holidays. Go, enjoy if, that is, you like musicals.

Released by Warner Bros. and HKC (in Pakistan), Wonka has yet to be rated at the time of publication but there is nothing NOT family-friendly in the film

Published in Dawn, ICON, December 17th, 2023