DISCOVER HOW WILLY BECAME WONKA.

When a young magician and chocolatier (Timothée Chalamet) arrives in a small village, he faces stiff resistance from a cartel of chocolatiers.

Director Paul King takes on Roald Dahl’s classic story in the form of a prequel, the same way he made his Paddington movies: with irresistible charm, humor and fantasy. Not only do we learn how Willy got his factory, we’re also treated to the sight of Hugh Grant as a thieving Oompa Loompa.

A fun, playful film with a superb cast and lovely technical details. As for the fresh song score, it’s amiable enough, but can’t beat the performance of ”Pure Imagination” in the end.

2023-U.S.-U.K. 116 min. Color. Widescreen. Directed by Paul King. Screenplay: Simon Farnaby, Paul King. Cinematography: Chung Chung-hoon. Songs: Neil Hannon. Cast: Timothée Chalamet (Willy Wonka), Calah Lane (Noodle), Hugh Grant (Lofty), Olivia Colman, Keegan Michael-Key, Paterson Joseph… Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson. 

Trivia: Tom Holland, Ryan Gosling and Ezra Miller were considered for the lead role.

Last word: “We really wanted to make this as a companion piece to the 1971 movie. Obviously, music is at the heart of that, and it’s how they express Gene Wilder’s innermost hopes and dreams with ‘Pure Imagination’. And, there’s the Oompa-Loompa song. It would seem crazy to me to have an Oompa-Loompa come on and not hear the Oompa-Loompa music. That’s what God intended. We were inspired by their choices. Dahl used music in a huge amount of what he did. In his books there’s always songs or verses and poetry that’s supposed to be a song, and the Oompa-Loompas are singing all the way through it.” (King, BFI)