[Review] Wonder (6/10)

Wonder did not play like what or how the trailers were selling it. As I have never read the book, and I guess I should spill it right off the bat; the movie split itself into a few sections to tell the different perspectives of its characters.

So we are not just following the main character, but the side characters have their small side stories as well; which I did not welcome and I thought was painfully unnecessary in the whole scheme of things because the movie would have been a better experience had it been one seamless story.

I am guessing that was how the novel by R.J. Palacio told the story, and director Stephen Chbosky tried to incorporate it into the movie. But as someone who has never read the book, I thought it was distracting from the main plot.

Granted, I really appreciated how we also got to look at how this main character's deformity affected the rest of the family; and I thought it was a brilliant move to show how the older sister, played by Izabela Vidovic, coped with the lack of attention from her parents growing up.

Owen Wilson did not look like or feel like a dad. But Julia Roberts was a powerhouse in the acting department. Only to be overshadowed by Jacob Tremblay, who had already won multiple awards for his work in Room.

There were many, many instances that the director would have been able to bring out the waterworks; but in those instances it was as if he consciously chose not to go that route and presented the entire movie in a lovely red bow.

Everything that happened was never so bad that we as the audience would worry for the character. Even that fist fight in the forest happened so randomly and with no real consequences that I had to wonder why certain things were shown at all if they were not going to follow through.

And that father-and-son talk, which ought to have been a powerful scene, had no build-up to it and again felt very random.

While there were definitely parts and scenes that were well crafted, I thought as a whole the movie fell a bit short. And there definitely is something wrong if a movie trailer could almost bring me to tears and the actual movie had difficulty.