‘Wonder’ Is A Lightly Affecting Weeper For All Ages [Review]

Sentimentality can be tricky to handle. Without it, a film can feel emotionally empty, but too much can be cloying and manipulative. “Wonder,” based on the acclaimed, best-selling novel of the same name by R.J. Palacio, falls somewhere in the middle. It’s certainly good-hearted, and it’s hard to fault the film’s compassion and earnestness, yet at the same time, it never rings completely true. More benevolent than emotionally enriching, it’s an unremarkable but nevertheless lightly affecting weeper for all audiences. Bolstered by winning performances and sensitive filmmaking, it’s a warm, friendly, easily appealing charmer, bolstered with good intentions and the familiar but important messages of kindness and acceptance. It’s not quite, ahem, wonderful, but it doesn’t need to be. It just needs to win you over. By the end, it does.

Auggie Pullman (a fantastic Jacob Tremblay) is not your average kid. Born with a rare disease known as mandibulofacial dysostosis, Auggie not only deals with all the difficulties of being 10-years-old, but also with a cruel facial debilitation that makes him look like few other children. Sheltered by his caring but concerned parents, Nate (Owen Wilson) and Isabel (Julia Roberts), for his entire life, Auggie was homeschooled in the Upper West Side of New York City and isolated from other children near his age. But now that he’s ready to enter the fifth grade, his parents believe it’s time for him to embrace the world and go to school. Auggie is nervous, of course, as are his folks and his older sister Via (Izabela Vidovic), but he’s welcomed by a caring principal with an unfortunate name, Mr. Tushman (Mandy Patinkin). Soon befriended by cool kid Jack Will (Noah Jupe), Auggie weathers the seas of endless peril known as middle school. But while he sees his fair share of bullies and adversities, as we watch him go from 5th to 6th grade, Auggie will prove his exceptional in more ways than one.

On the surface, “Wonder” can appear to be “Mask” or “The Elephant Man” for the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” crowd. But director Stephen Chbosky, who not only wrote the book “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” but helmed its well-received film adaptation, approaches Palacio’s novel with a fine eye for clever, if far from subtle, visual flairs and likable, well-rounded characters. Unlike other studio-funded middle-schooler films, there are no excessive or easy gross-out gags, nor are there any larger than life parental figures. Instead, Chbosky brings a nice balance of grounded charm and sugary sweetness, producing a movie that’s not entirely authentic, but believable and accessible.

Part of Chbosky’s success comes from the screenplay he authored with Steve Conrad (“The Pursuit of Happyness“) and Jack Throne (“A Long Way Down“), which focuses on the basics of Palacio’s story without completely stripping away what made it such a public school library favorite. Having turned his own novel into a film previously, Chbosky understands the careful consideration that is necessary for the process. While he takes quite a few liberties with the source material, he keeps the heart of the book present and pure. Even if the nitty-gritty details are changed, the broad strokes are what count.

The rest of the film’s success comes from the heartfelt performances from the entire ensemble. Tremblay is, of course, given the most dramatic lifting to do, and while “Room” was most certainly his breakout performance, his take on Auggie Pullman is often just as incredible — and that’s without mentioning all the facial prosthetics he has to wear through it all. Tremblay continues to bring an impressive inner life to his performances, without ever making his characters overly cutesy. Auggie Pullman is likely his most challenging role to date, and he pulls it off with absolute gusto. Wilson and Roberts do solid work, never completely disappearing into their characters, but bringing their usual wit and personalities to their individual roles. Wilson, in particular, brings a cool ease to the proceedings, while Roberts puts her usual waterworks to good use. Vidovic, Jupe, and Millie Davis, as Auggie’s other eventual school friend Summer, are similarly impressive and talented beyond their years, while Patinkin uses his usual gravitas with fine aplomb. Also, “Hamilton” star Daveed Diggs is fun and charismatic as Mr. Browne, one of Auggie’s standout teachers, though more screen time would’ve been nice.

Given that the book features a variety of different perspectives, Chobsky admittedly has a hard time giving proper narrative weight to anyone who isn’t Auggie. That’s understandable, especially considering how “Perks of Being a Wallflower” and “Wonder” both intently focus on outsider kids struggling to make their way and adjusting to the challenges of growing up. Those are elements are where Chobsky is often at his best as a filmmaker. Even as the movie ventures into outright mawkishness — as it definitely does towards the last third — by that point it has already won your affections, and earned the freedom to go mushy with its emotions. “Wonder” promotes the benefits of human decency in a time when those virtues feel limited, and wins you over by being a pretty good film about being good — and that’s good enough for it to work. [B-]