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Critics Consensus: Wonderstruck's efforts to juggle timelines and tonal shifts aren't always smooth, but the end result still adds up to an emotional journey whose visual thrills live up to its title.
Critic Consensus: Wonderstruck's efforts to juggle timelines and tonal shifts aren't always smooth, but the end result still adds up to an emotional journey whose visual thrills live up to its title.
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All Critics (199) | Top Critics (39) | Fresh (132) | Rotten (67)
Aims for whimsical, but lands well short of its goal.
Those who are merely looking for a flick that goes well with popcorn may be bored, but true cinema buffs will be in heaven.
The longing for interpersonal connection, which is so central to Wonderstruck, reverberates throughout Haynes's work.
A sweet, gentle story of two children connecting across time.
Haynes struggles to connect all the dots. Wonderstruck reaches for the stars and falls short.
It's the sort of poetic conceit that needs a filmmaker far more rapt and intuitive than Haynes, whose jeweler's precision keeps everything at an emotional remove.
The two leads of Wonderstruck are both deaf, one of whom is portrayed wonderfully by deaf talent Millicent Simmonds.
Wonderstruck's diligence in dropping breadcrumbs becomes a hundred-pound weight dragging behind the plot, preventing the film from sweeping you away into a world of curiosity and awe, despite the film being ostensibly about precisely that.
Wonderstruck flows gracefully between its two stories before uniting them in an emotional crescendo of absolute beauty.
If Selznick's story isn't remarkable, Haynes and the cast ... breathe enough soul into it as compensation.
It may not be his most elegant film, but it beats heavy on the drums of all the anxieties and preoccupations that Haynes is synonymous for.
Haynes has created a beautiful artefact, layer upon layer, a mainstream film that is both sophisticated and innocent.
Todd Haynes follows up his resplendent Carol, with an effective and unique family film, touching in a rather distant way, and hauntingly beautiful to look at and to listen to. The child leads are endearing and present role models for other younger kids who are deaf or feel alone because of their differences. If Haynes direction is occasionally muted and chilly, well that is the price one pays for all technical aspects at their peak. We feel for the characters by default, although some rawer emotion would have benefited the production. But Wonderstruck's crystal clear ending brings everything to a nicely poignant head, and the film will linger in the imaginations of many kids and their parents. Rating: 81
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