Wonka review: Timothee Chalamet is a sugary treat in this spectacular family entertainer

Wonka, the prequel to the Johnny Depp-helmed Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, is beguilingly warm, fuzzy, hilarious and transcendent. (Screen grab/YouTube/Warner Bros. Pictures)

On paper, revisiting a character, last played by an actor whose reputation has since declined in public view would be considered risqué. More so, if you remove the traits, the deeper-than-skin darkness that made the original Wonka, the protagonist of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory - one of Roald Dahl’s most popular and debated stories - so fascinating. An idea that is naturally suspect to the accusations of whitewashing. It must take more than just granular conviction to then turn a potentially perilous experiment into a frothy, controlled victory. Wonka, the prequel to the Johnny Depp-helmed Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, is beguilingly warm, fuzzy, hilarious and transcendent. Moreover, it’s evidence of the inexistence of Timothee Chalamet’s ceiling. Because there is nothing this young man cannot do.

Chalamet, a young Wonka, arrives in pre-war Paris with some money and a bag full of dreams. “Every good thing in the world started with a dream,” his mother tells him in a flashback that confirms he is a daydreamer who set out to be a magician before becoming a chocolate disruptor. His arrival in this dazzling, snowed-in city, is met with resentment by the resident chocolate cartel, a troika of greedy, persuasive men who control everything from the sewers to the city’s police chief, an excellent Keegan-Michael Key.

There is a hint of anti-classicism to this narrative, for the cartel despises the impoverished. “Greedy beet the needy,” a character neatly summarises at one point. Wonka ends up in a dormitory of sorts, run by the despicable, scheming Mrs Scrubbit, played by the likeably depraved Olivia Colman. Wonka is manipulated into staying at the dormitory and scrubbing laundry to pay off an inordinate amount of dues. Here he meets Noodle (Calah Lane), a young urchin with a secret connection to the city’s past. The chocolateur cracks his way out of contractual bondage to treat the city and its folk with chocolate that feels like edible beads of heaven. It’s a routine fairy-tale, of the pauper rising to displace the boorish king – in this case, clans – but it’s done with such finesse, charm and striking vigour that it never feels sluggish, overfamiliar or stale. Musicals, especially prequels, can be hard sells, but Director Paul King and his team inject an old tale with the perky glee of a coming-of-age carnival.

This also means that Wonka’s hidden resentment of his own customers – chubby children hooked to chocolate – is sideswept by a more generic love for spreading joy via sweet delicacies. Our protagonist is also helped by an excellent cast which includes Rowan Atkinson playing a frisky priest and the unmissable Hugh Grant as a grumpy Oompa Loompaa. Grant’s grumpiness has become so freakishly iconic and magnetic – including at the Oscars – that it might have to be recognised as a genre in itself. Even as a green-skinned dwarf who looks disenchanted by everything, his presence instantly lifts the film.

Timothy Chalamet as Willy Wonka and Hugh Grant as a grumpy Oompa Loompaa. (Screen grab/YouTube/Warner Bros. Pictures)

Wonka obviously refutes the complexity of the Dahl character, the streak of narcissism and loneliness that made the previous film light up with just enough jeopardy and mischief to also amount to something more than a sugary high. Here, all of that bitterness has been replaced by the do-good arc of a good Samaritan who really just wants to enthral those around him; both literally, and metaphorically. It’s unconvincing as a logline, maybe a little too homespun for the arousing thrill of witnessing a troubled but capable magician, but it delivers in sweetness and charm that which it withdraws in terms of cautionary advice.

None of this could obviously be possible without the spellbinding anchoring act of a wiry Chalamet who probably doesn’t eat a lot of chocolate himself (look at him). Chocolate is the currency, the monolithic item of interest here, but it is really Chalamet who provides or, you could argue, becomes the sweets. It’s almost as if the brief to this actor of prodigious faculties is to let his face, voice and indescribable allure do the talking. It’s like watching an audition for the face of a hallmark card or the mouth-paralysing chocolate that it comes with. It’s adorable, weirdly seductive and imperiously entertaining. From milking a giraffe to feeding adults treats that help them defy gravity, there is practically and metaphorically nothing that this young man looks incapable of pulling off.

Wonka is so breezy, chock-full of punchlines and prudently cast, that any or all hiccups feel like crunchy morsels of saltiness that keep the mushiness from drowning you. But even the fuzzy, world-conquering ethos of the narrative can’t be mellowed by the dampness of squidgy purpose and meaning. Don’t go looking for insight or fat-shaming critique here, because this is a pure joyride, a cup full of irresistible cocoa served by the young man who might become a bit of a cinematic addiction himself. Not that there is anything wrong with it, says the satisfied sweet tooth of yore.