Wonder movie review & film summary (2017)
Just when “Wonder” seems to be settling into a routine at school, it shifts and revisits that first day from a variety of other characters’ perspectives. So we learn what happened to Auggie’s lonely sister, Via, when she met a cute new boy (Nadji Jeter) and dared to sign up for the high school play. We get a glimpse into Jack Will’s home life, which enriches the significance of his relationship with Auggie. We find out what’s really going on with Via’s lifelong best friend, Miranda (Danielle Rose Russell), who suddenly snubbed her at the start of the school year.
As he did with his insightful young adult drama “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” Chbosky handles major adolescent events with decency and grace. The cumulative effect—as overly simplistic as it may sound – is the powerful understanding of what it feels like to walk in someone else’s shoes. The emotion of this enlightenment sneaks up on you in quiet ways. Even Wilson, whose character feels underwritten beyond providing comic relief during moments of family tension, gets perhaps the most heartbreaking, uplifting line in the whole film. You’ll shed a tear or two—especially if you’re a parent—and they’ll be totally earned.
All of which makes it so frustrating that “Wonder” throws that restraint and goodwill out the window in its finale and turns wildly sentimental. Chbosky cranks up the feel-good with a climax full of wild applause at the most clichéd place possible: a school assembly. How is it possible that so many cinematic moments of truth take place before a packed auditorium?
But the film does so much so well for so long that its pat conclusion feels forgivable. Early on during a screening of “Wonder,” when the film first reveals the scars and deformities that mark the hero’s face, my eight-year-old son turned to me and whispered, “He looks weird.” Once the movie was over, as we were walking out of the theater and I asked him what he thought, he exclaimed: “I loved it!” Such is the film’s transformative power. It is a machine for creating empathy.
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