If you are old enough you’ll remember Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory from 1971.
In 2005 Johnny Depp played Willy in the telling of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and this year another aspect of this sweet story offers Timothée Chalamet playing the titular character in the origin story – Wonka.
Based on the extraordinary character at the centre of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, perhaps Dahl’s most iconic children’s book, Wonka tells the wondrous story of how the world’s greatest inventor, magician and chocolate maker became the beloved Willy Wonka we know today.
In this version, we find Willy Wonka, an aspiring magician, inventor, and chocolatier, arriving in Europe to establish his chocolate shop at the Galeries Gourmet. After using up his meagre savings, he is coerced to stay at Mrs Scrubitt’s boarding house by her henchman, Bleacher. Despite orphan Noodle’s warning about the fine print, Willy signs a contract because he is illiterate. To pay them off, Wonka has an idea and sells ‘hoverchocs’, chocolates that make people fly, facing mockery from three rival chocolatiers who call the chief of police to confiscate his earnings for selling without a chocolate store.
Unable to pay the expensive fees imposed on him by the contract, Willy is captured and is forced to work in a launderette for Mrs Scrubitt alongside five other captives, including Noodle. Learning of a ‘Chocolate Cartel’ consisting of the three rival chocolatiers, who exploit the chief’s temptation for chocolate to force Willy to leave town…
From Paul King, writer/director of the Paddington films, comes an intoxicating mix of magic and music, mayhem and emotion, all told with fabulous heart and humour. Chalamet in the title role of this irresistibly vivid and inventive big-screen spectacle will introduce audiences to a young Willy Wonka, chock-full of ideas and determined to change the world one delectable bite at a time—proving that the best things in life begin with a dream, and if you’re lucky enough to meet Willy Wonka, anything is possible.
Wonka is screening at Palace Cinemas in Ballina and Byron Bay.
