By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Woody Allen
Cast: Kate Winslet, Justin Timberlake, Juno Temple, Steve Schirripa, Tony Sirico, Max Casella, David Krumholtz, Debi Mazar, Jack Gore and Jim Belushi.
Rating: Poor.
Academy Award Winning writer/director Woody Allen brings as usual another movie this year and he does it with “Wonder Wheel” and frankly I was very dissapointed.
The movie takes place in the summer during the 50`s in Coney Island, and tells the story of Ginny (Kate Winslet) a former actress, now waitress who lives with her husband Humpty (Jim Belushi) a carrousel operator and his son who has an obsession with fires Richie (Jack Gore).
Everything will change for Ginny when she meets Mickey Rubin (Justin Timberlake) an aspiring writer who works as a lifeguard. She begins to have an affair with him and will be in love.
The problem will rise when Humpty`s estranged daughter Carolina (Juno Temple) shows up in their lives again.
Not only this represents a problem for Ginny but when Mickey meets Carolina, she will have her eyes on him as well.
Now Ginny will have to think carefully about her choices that eventually can have a serious repercution in her life.
The reason why I mentioned that “Wonder Wheel” was a big dissapointment was about the story.
It had a very interesting first act but everything went down to the drain when the second act of the film started.
Nothing made any sense and I was very surprised since I have mentioned for many years that Woody Allen is a master in telling this type of stories that involve love triangles and he is the master on this.
This time he failed badly and the turns that he took on the characters on this film where not convincing and I felt that I was watching a soap opera.
I felt that he wanted to go to his old roots with movies like “Annie Hall” where he used the fourth wall but it didn´t work and this film is not even close.
Kate Winslet`s performance was good but again one actor cannot save an entire project and this proves my point.
Justin Timberlake and Jim Belushi were ok in their respective roles but nothing extraordinary.
There were a lot continuity issues with this film specially cinematography wise. I was very surprised since Vittorio Storaro since he worked with Woody Allen in last year´s “Café Society” and there were a lot of issues here. Some of the shots didn`t make any sense and it made me feel very uncomfortable.
The ending of the film was completely useless and it didn´t make any sense at all.
have always liked Woody Allen`s films but here I was not happy with the result and hopefully his next film is better.
“Wonder Wheel” is one big dissapointment and I cannot recommend it.