Plenty to wonder at

Wonderstruck is a film by Todd Haynes and you will certainly be struck by wonder, often. You will wonder at its painful slowness. You will wonder at the way it strains credulity until it snaps. You will wonder if the violins will ever give it a rest. You will wonder if it will ever end. And you will wonder at the ending, when it does finally come, as it is so stupid. So it does not short-change on the wonder front. Whatever the price of your cinema ticket, you will be getting limitless wonder in return.

Haynes is usually such an immaculate, thoughtful, winning filmmaker (Carol, Far From Heaven, Velvet Goldmine, that Karen Carpenter short told with Barbie dolls — Superstar) that you will also wonder: how could he have helmed such an unholy mess? ‘Is it for children?’, I heard someone ask, hopefully, after the screening I attended. ‘I don’t think it’s for anyone,’ I felt compelled to reply. ‘It’s a fairy tale,’ someone else remonstrated, defensively. But at this point I chose to leave it there, as I did not have the energy for a fight. I’d just given two hours to a film concluding not only with a vast chunk of exposition, but a vast chunk of exposition that entirely failed to add up. And that takes it out of you.

As based on the novel for young adults by Brian Selznick, who also wrote the screenplay — so perhaps we can lay some of the blame at his feet — this offers a bifurcated narrative following two 12-year-olds separated by half a century. First, we have Rose (Millicent Simmonds), who is deaf and lives in New Jersey in 1927 with her brutal father.