Wonder Review

We've had a lot of movies with "Wonder" in the title this year. The obvious one is "Wonder Woman," but there's also been "Wonder Wheel," "Wonderstruck" and "Professor Marston and the Wonder Women." And now we have "Wonder." You can say that it's been a wonderful year. Full of wonder. OK, I'm done. "Wonder" is a movie that came out at the same time as "Justice League," so right before Thanksgiving. After watching the trailers, it looked like an overly-sentimental movie that we've seen a hundred times before. While I'm usually nicer to movies like this than some, there were so many other movies that I wanted to get to as well as this holiday called Thanksgiving that I felt like celebrating that this one wasn't super high on my priority list. Thus is why I'm a few weeks late. But what caught my attention with this movie is it's box office performance. It had a surprisingly good opening weekend and it's held remarkably well in the ensuing weeks. As if everyone had the same mindset as me, yet slowly started to realize that this is actually a movie worth paying attention to. So there I was in a sold-out showing of "Wonder" on a Tuesday night nearly three weeks after its release. And my screening gave this a round of applause at the end. I joined in.

So yes, "Wonder" is the movie about the kid with facial deformities who has to now go to school for the very first time. It's based on a popular book that I have not read, so that's as far as we're going with that conversation. If you're a fan of the book and you want to know how this movie compares to the book, you'll have to talk to someone else about that. I'm here to just talk about the movie that I saw. The kid's name in this movie is August "Auggie" Pullman and he was born with these facial deformities. He's understandably self-conscious about how he looks and what other people are thinking about him, given their constant stares, so he spends a lot of time wearing an astronaut helmet that would probably make Daft Punk proud. Because of this, his parents have chosen to home school him for most of his young life so that he can be protected and avoid public scrutiny. But come time for fifth grade, his parents come to the realization that they can't hide him from the world forever, so they make the tough decision that he needs to go to a public school. The longer they avoid this, the harder it will be for him to integrate into normal life. So Auggie agrees that he will honor their wishes and give it a go, which makes them all nervous despite them feeling that this is the right choice.

For the first part of this movie, this plays out exactly how you might think, but the reason why I was so invested in this is due to the performances of our main characters, namely Jacob Tremblay as Auggie. I've been doing my absolute best to shout this kid's name from the rooftops ever since I saw him in "Room" in 2015. In that movie he played a kid who had never been exposed to the outside world due to certain situations. When he finally was, he reacted in the exact way that a young kid probably would, which is why I was so blown away by the performance. I've rarely seen a child actor act so perfectly in a movie before. Each ensuing movie that I've seen him in, he's given equally as impressive performances in that he becomes the exact character that the director needs him to be and this is no different. He's acting as a young, self-conscious kid with a deformed face that has to experience the real world by himself for perhaps the first time and Jacob Tremblay acts in a manner that makes me believe the makeup or prosthetics that he's wearing for this movie is his actual face and that he's acting based on personal experience. Thus I gained a deep, emotional attachment to his character right away and I was just as nervous as he was walking into the school.

However, it wasn't just Jacob Tremblay that I was nervous about. Owen Wilson and Julia Roberts play his parents and both of them gave performances that are better than anything I've seen from them in recent years. They are the absolute perfect parents for him as they give him just the right amount of love and attention to make sure he feels wanted and accepted. Thus when they decided that they are going to let him into the real world, I was equally nervous for them. How are they going to handle this. What if Auggie hates school? What if he's bullied? What if he doesn't fit in? This is a very delicate situation for them. What are they going to say to Auggie or do to help him? I'm not a parent myself, but I am an uncle to many nieces and nephews, thus I know that it's a tough responsibility as an adult to figure out what the best way to handle certain situations. Thus I was on the edge of my seat for this first act of the movie as we saw Auggie going to school. When the principle, Mr. Tushman, played excellently by Mandy Patinkin (Jason Gideon from "Criminal Minds" and Inigo Montoya from "The Princess Bride") treats him perfectly, I cheered. When certain kids acted poorly, I cringed. When other kids treated him well, I cheered again. This was a very emotional ride for me.

As we were going along on this ride, I started to ask myself the question that I had asked after watching the trailers. What is this movie going to do to set it apart from all the other movies? I began to imagine all the potential outcomes for this movie and I didn't see any of those outcomes as being truly unique and special. But then the movie hit me with a curveball that I wasn't expecting. We stopped. We went back in time. Then we told the same story again, but from the perspective of Auggie's older sister. The "normal" looking one. The trailers didn't clue me into this at all, thus it's almost a minor spoiler, but I do feel the need to mention in because if you had the same mindset as me going in, I feel the need to explain to you what it is about this movie that sets it apart. Most movies like this will keep telling the story from the main character's perspective, but I don't know how many of them do exactly what this does by letting us in on what everyone else is going through. Because, yeah, the older sister looks normal and thus doesn't stand out. But that's the thing. Her parents have spent so much time focusing on Auggie, that they forget about her. Not intentionally, of course. They're still good parents to her. But on her first day of school, she feels lonely and lost.

The movie ends up being just as much about this sister as it is about Auggie and thus I have to give equal credit to Izabela Vidovic for also making this movie work. But she's not the only other person this movie focuses on. We end up telling this story from multiple perspectives, thus the underlying message isn't simply saying that we should be kind to people who look differently than us, the message is really saying that we should be kind to everyone. Regardless of who you are, everyone has issues that they are dealing with and challenges in their life that they have to overcome. Yes, we should be kind to people who are different than us, but we should also be kind to our friends, family members, classmates and other associates who, on the surface, seem like nothing is wrong with them. That really got to me. If there is a bully in school, have you ever thought about why they are being a bully? If your friend does something you don't appreciate, have you are thought about why it is they might've done that? If you have a sibling that you think has no challenges or issues they are facing, have you ever thought that maybe they actually might be having troubles that just aren't showing up on the surface? Thus is the human experience and that's what this movie is all about.

It actually took me until the end credits to figure out what the best comparison for this movie was. Initially I was thinking maybe "A Monster Calls" from last year or perhaps "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," which is the other movie from director Stephen Chbosky. While "Wonder" is equally as good, if not better than those two, it's good for completely different reasons. But at the end of the credits I noticed that this came from Walden Media and immediately the light bulb went off in my head. They're the production company that did "Holes" and "Bridge to Terabithia." That's the company that "Wonder" belongs in. Three very different stories, yes. But three family friendly movies that teach powerful lessons and all have huge emotional payoffs at the end. Because, yeah, everything in "Wonder" had built up so perfectly that when we got to the end, this movie gave me the Pixar treatment. For some reason, I'm not the type of person where tears roll down my face very often, and they didn't here. But I certainly felt this one. I think I was more emotional at the end of this movie than I have been all year. And that's with "Coco" in mind. If you are the type where tears roll down your face, you might might need to bring a few boxes of tissues to this movie.

Going into this movie, I didn't think that this would be a movie that I would label as a must see. When the trailers showed, I wasn't sure it was even a movie that I would see in theaters. Even after the positive reception and the surprising box office, I thought that this would be a good movie, but not necessarily a great one. Thus I can confidently say after seeing this movie that this is one of the surprise movies of the year, if not THE surprise movie of the year. Sure, you can nitpick certain elements of the story or the actions of certain characters. Perhaps you can claim that this has too pretty of a bow wrapped around it. I was listening to a lot of reviewers who were pointing out minor things that bothered them and I could totally see where they were coming from, but none of those things really bothered me enough for me to feel the need to point them out. I think this is an absolutely excellent film with a powerful message that just might stick with you long after you see it. Given that this is only PG, this is also a movie that you can take your kids to and in doing so, it just might be the movie that teaches them the most important lessons about how to treat others around them. It absolutely is a must see and I am giving "Wonder" a very strong 9.5/10.