Crapshoot Cinema: Wonder Wheel (2017)

We all have those times when something pops up that looks good enough to take a chance on, and I thought 2017’s Wonder Wheel might just hit the spot. It’s a summer movie set at Coney Island in 1950, so there’s a little vicarity there. It’s got Justin Timberlake, Kate Winslet, Jim Belushi and Woody Allen. What could possibly go wrong?

Just about everything.

It’s a typical summer day, only it isn’t. Lifeguard and college student Mickey is our resident Garrison Keillor, except that he wants to be a playwright. Vicarity is the order of the day, and Mickey is both the audience character and a Greek chorus.

Mickey’s been having an affair with Ginny, a waitress at Ruby’s who’s unhappily married and has a son, Richie, from her previous marriage. Richie is a film buff and budding arsonist. Ginny’s husband, Humpty, works at the carousel and spends all his free time fishing. They live in an apartment over the shooting gallery right in view of the titular Wheel and Ginny complains of migraines.

Into the fray comes Humpty’s daughter, Carolina, who’s the wife of a gangster and now a marked woman because she talked to the FBI about her husband’s activities. Ginny thinks Carolina shouldn’t stay because she’s marked. After getting on her for her past choices, Humpty is overjoyed to have his daughter back and pays for Carolina to go to night school.

Naturally, Mickey is quite taken with Carolina and ends up getting caught in the middle of the family drama, although mostly as an observer. Things get explosive, not to mention Richie won’t stop setting fires.

Boy, Woody Allen phoned it in on Wonder Wheel. The film is stage-y, which isn’t usually a problem, but the situations and dialogue feel like something a college student would write. We have the alcoholic couple who are regretting their choices and do whatever they can to get away from each other while not getting away from each other. We have the wayward daughter whose bad choices are coming back to haunt the family. Everyone in the movie is incredibly neurotic, a little sleazy and frankly unlikeable in many respects.

Where the film really shines is in the outdoor scenes, which are accurate, as the film used real locations, albeit tweaked only slightly, although they haven’t changed much since the 1950s. The Wonder Wheel, which is a real Coney Island attraction, has been going strong since 1920.

Here’s some of the history of the wheel from Deno John Vouderis, a third-generation Coney Island employee:

denoswonderwheel

A post shared by @denoswonderwheel

While Coney Island and the Wheel are great to look at, they’re hugely missed opportunities. The characters never once ride the Wonder Wheel, which is always in the background in some way. If anyone has ever seen this wheel, and I’ve only seen it in photos and film clips, it’s more than a Ferris wheel. The red and blue cars swing and slide along tracks, a fact both thrilling and terrifying considering the wheel takes riders one-hundred fifty feet in the air.

The potential symbolism of this is more than obvious because the Wonder Wheel presents unpredictability, living in the moment, and instability. They also present resolve, as Ferris wheels of any kind always return their riders to solid ground, after which they get off the wheel. Why couldn’t the Wonder Wheel have been used to show these characters finally resolving their problems and coming to a place of stability, or at least a semblance of stability? Not that it has to be a Brady Bunch episode, but too much of the story is unaddressed and futile when it doesn’t have to be.

As far as the acting goes, Kate Winslet is way too good for this movie. She leads and everyone follows, except for Jim Belushi, who’s no slouch himself. Problem is, we could never in a million years imagine these two people ever getting married, at least not for love. We can’t even imagine Kate with Justin Timberlake, who holds his own in his scenes with her but he always looks a little scared.

Brevity is Wonder Wheel’s other plus. The rest is just depressing.

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Wonder Wheel is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. Rated PG-13.

My grade: C-

Principal Cast: Justin Timberlake, Juno Temple, Robert C. Kirk, Kate Winslet, Jim Belushi, Jack Gore, Tommy Nohilly, Tony Sirico, Steve Schrripa, John Doumanian, Tom Guiry, Max Casella, Gregory Dann, Bobby Slayton, Michael Zegarski, Geneva Carr, Ed Jewett, Debi Mazar

Written and directed by Woody Allen.