[Declaration of interest: Anthony is my friend]
This film is so beautiful.
This is fine. It's absolutely fine. Paul King applies his trademark style (heartwarming, colourful, Britishish, slick and containing actual jokes) to another beloved childhood brand, and it mostly works. Chalamet is perfectly serviceable as Wonka: he is irritating, but then so is the character; he gives it just about the right amount of flourish and doe-eye. But who, really, is this character? He's part Oliver Twist in the big city, part Paddington, part Bert from Mary Poppins, part Mary Poppins…
This film is a gift. I was expecting, at best, a smart superhero movie for young fans of that sort of thing - but this film is so much more than that. I think it's actually an important film: its message, that anybody can be the hero, runs completely counter to the proto-fascism of the horrific superhero drivel we see in other films, and is therefore radical and revolutionary. Its take on empowerment and identity politics seems to me to…
This film is beautiful and devastating. Not to be all "the magic of the movies" about it, but how - HOW - does Jonathan Glazer make you accept this premise, go along with it, and be torn apart by it? The magic of the movies, that's how! As with Under The Skin, just telling you that something is true makes it be so - because everything else around it works, and Glazer is intelligent in the way he grounds his…