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| Woody Allen: Wonder Wheel (US 2017) starring Kate Winslet as Ginny Rannell. |
Wonder Wheel / Wonder Wheel.
US © 2017 Gravier Productions, Inc. Amazon Studios present in association with Gravier Productions – A Perdido Production. P: Erika Aronson, Letty Aronson, Edward Walson.
D+SC: Woody Allen. Cin: Vittorio Storaro – color (ACES) – 2.00:1 – source formats: F55 RAW 4K, F65 RAW 4K – master format: 4K – release: D-Cinema. PD: Santo Loquasto. AD: Miguel López-Castillo. Set dec: Regina Graves. Cost: Suzy Benzinger. Makeup: Stacey Panepinto. Hair: Jerry Popolis. SFX: Mike Myers [IX]. VFX: Glenn Allen (visual effects producer: Brainstorm Digital). No original score music. Soundtrack listing: beyond the jump break. S: Robert Hein. ED: Alisa Lepselter. Casting: Patricia DiCerto.
C from Wikipedia:
Kate Winslet as Ginny Rannell, Humpty's wife and Richie's mother and Carolina's stepmother
Juno Temple as Carolina Rannell, Humpty's grown daughter from his first marriage
Justin Timberlake as Mickey Rubin, a lifeguard and the film's narrator
Jim Belushi as Humpty Rannell, a recovering alcoholic, Ginny's husband, Carolina's father, and Richie's stepfather
Jack Gore as Richie Rannell, Ginny's young son
Tony Sirico as Angelo, a gangster
Steve Schirripa as Nick, a gangster
Debi Mazar as birthday party guest
Thomas Guiry as flirtatious man at Ruby's
Max Casella as Ryan, Humpty's fishing buddy
David Krumholtz as Jake, Mickey's friend
Filming dates: 15 Sep – 28 Oct 2016.
Loc: Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park (Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City). New York, Staten Island.
Typeface: Windsor Light Condensed.
101 min
The Wonder Wheel in the film is the actual Coney Island Wonder Wheel. Opened in 1920, it has been designated as an official New York landmark and is still in operation a hundred years later.
Festival premiere: 14 Oct 2017 New York Film Festival.
US premiere: 1 Dec 2017 (limited), 15 Dec 2017 (wide).
Finnish premiere: 29 Dec 2017, released by Finnkino.
Dvd released in 2019 by Scanbox / Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Nordic & Baltics AB with Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish subtitles, Finnish subtitles by Jaana Wiik.
Dvd borrowed from Helsinki City Library, Rikhardinkatu Library.
Dvd viewed at home in Lappeenranta on a 4K tv screen, 6 June 2021.
Woody Allen belongs to the film-makers from whom I want to see everything. Today I finally caught up with Wonder Wheel, an amazing and brilliant look at illusion and reality in romantic dreams and everyday family life, all reflected in the make-believe world of an amusement park at Coney Island. I usually take copious notes while watching a film, but Wonder Wheel is so engrossing and engaging that it took me quite a while before I was able to start.
No director in the history of the cinema has had more superb casts than Allen. In Wonder Wheel I believe all four leading actors appear in his film for the first time. Like Cate Blanchett and Kristen Stewart previously, Kate Winslet gets an opportunity to create something new, different and great. Winslet's performance as Ginny is quietly disturbing. It is a subtle study of a woman whose talent has been repressed and wasted. Winslet's ability to convey profound currents via silence and immobility is memorable in a similar fashion in her wonderful performance in Ammonite.
Jim Belushi is cast against type as the recovering alcoholic husband Humpty. Belushi creates a complex persona, capable of both terrible injustice and tenderness. Juno Temple is appealing as Humpty's daughter Carolina who is in trouble with the mob, having informed to the FBI ("I know where all the bodies are buried").
Justin Timberlake as the young lifeguard Mickey provides both beefcake and a direct address discourse on the essence of tragedy (his dream is to become a great playwright like Eugene O'Neill). The athletic dreamboat, the confident and assured Mickey is the direct opposite to Allen's typical schlemiel protagonist. Mickey belongs to a lineage including Jean-Pierre Aumont in Lac aux dames and Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing.
Wonder Wheel provides both escapism and an exposé of escapism. It is based on clichés but goes beyond them, revealing both the truth and the deception of clichés. Love is a dream that can become reality. Dream can help us survive reality, or it can prevent us from facing reality. In all main characters we see both sides: a talent for love, and a temptation for self-deception.
Wonder Wheel is in an unusual way a study in tragedy, as lectured by Mickey: we sense the capacity to grandeur, but there is a fatal weakness in each character. With Ginny, it's infidelity, with Humpty, alcohol, with Carolina, naivety, and with Mickey, philandering. Associations run to Phaedra and Desire Under the Elms.
Most prominently, Wonder Wheel is a tragedy of jealousy in which both mother (Ginny) and (Humpty's) daughter (Carolina) love the same young man (Mickey). Let's observe the beautiful account of the romance between a mature woman and a young man. The affair is wonderful as long as it lasts, but Mickey is not ready to commit. He is still immature. There is nothing cynical or facile in the way their story is told.
After Café Society, Wonder Wheel is Allen's second digitally captured movie and his second collaboration with master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. Allen and Storaro again use glossy digital unreality as a means of expression. The magic world, the make-believe, has interested Allen for a long time in films including The Purple Rose of Cairo, Shadows and Fog, Sweet and Lowdown, and Scoop. Here the digitally enhanced gorgeous visual approach is both enchanting and tragic in its shallowness.
A similar naive dream-world is evoked on the film's wonderful soundtrack, consisting solely of Allen's beloved vintage popular records, with titles such as "Coney Island Washboard" and "Kiss of Fire" (sung by Georgia Gibbs). The soundtrack provides an unusual background to tragedy.
Café Society took place in Hollywood and the high end nightclub scene of New York. The dramatis personae of Wonder Wheel belong to the working class and hard-working small enterpreneurs. Woody Allen views their life with affection and empathy.
...
Having seen the film I had a look at some of the reviews, by critics I most highly respect. I am sure they will regret those reviews more bitterly than anything they have ever done in their lives. They are documents of infinite shame to the profession of film criticism. Having read them I felt physically ill and did not sleep well.
I believe in fair play. Bless you Woody Allen, please never stop making films.
I am a Me Too partisan dal primo giorno. It's a world historical movement. False accusations and boycotts can damage it greatly. This is only the beginning, and the watchword must be justice.
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: SOUNDTRACK LISTING FROM THE IMDB:
"Coney Island Washboard"
Composed by Hampton Durand, Ned Kennedy, Claude Shugat & Harold Leroy Whitacre
Performed by The Mills Brothers
Courtesy of Columbia Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing
"In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree"
Composed by Harry Williams & Egbert Van Alstyne
Performed by Paul Eakins
Courtesy of Carlisle Music Co. LLC
"Over the Waves"
Composed by Juventino Rosas
Performed by Paul Eakins
Courtesy of Carlisle Music Co. LLC
"Roses of Picardy"
Composed by Frederick Edward Weatherly (as Frederick E. Weatherly) & Haydn Wood
Performed by Paul Eakins
Courtesy of Carlisle Music Co. LLC
"High Chaperone"
Composed by Werner Tautz
Courtesy of Extreme Music
"Drums West"
Composed by Chico Hamilton
Performed by The Chico Hamilton Quintet
Courtesy of Blue Note Records
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises
"Harbor Lights"
Composed by Jimmy Kennedy & Hugh Williams
Performed by Swing & Sway with Sammy Kaye
Courtesy of Columbia Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing
"Kiss of Fire"
Composed by Lester Allen & Robert Hill
Performed by Georgia Gibbs, Glenn Osser and His Orchestra
Courtesy of Decca Music Group
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises
"Till I Waltz Again with You"
Composed by Sidney Prosen
Performed by Teresa Brewer
Courtesy of Geffen Records
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises
"Let Me Call You Sweetheart"
Composed by Leo Friedman & Beth Slater Whitson
Performed by Paul Eakins
Courtesy of Carlisle Music Co. LLC
"You Belong to Me"
Composed by Pee Wee King, Chilton Price & Redd Stewart
Performed by Jo Stafford
Courtesy of Corinthian Records
By arrangement with Hanover Music Corp.
"Bell Bottom Trousers"
Composed by Moe Jaffe
Performed by Max Casella, Danielle Ferland, Debi Mazar, Bobby Slayton & Juno Temple
Courtesy of Gravier Productions, Inc.
"April Showers"
Composed by Louis Silvers & Buddy G. DeSylva (as B. G. DeSylva)
Performed by Max Casella, Danielle Ferland, Debi Mazar & Bobby Slayton
Courtesy of Gravier Productions, Inc.
"Ben Hur Chariot Race"
Composed by E. T. Paull
Performed by Paul Eakins
Courtesy of Carlisle Music Co. LLC
"Because of You"
Composed by Arthur Hammerstein & Dudley Wilkinson
Performed by Tony Bennett
Courtesy of Columbia Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing
"Red Roses for a Blue Lady"
Composed by Roy C. Bennett & Sid Tepper
Performed by Vaughn Monroe and His Orchestra
Courtesy of RCA Records
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing
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