Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

After seeing the re-make last night, Nicole and I christened a new term for creepy: "Johnny Depp Wonka." If you see a guy hanging out in an alley wearing a trench coat, you might comment to your mates, "Whoa, that's kind of Johnny Depp Wonka." If you're talking about your old college roommate, the phone rings, and it's him/her, you could say, "I was just talking about you...how Johnny Depp Wonka that you would call today."

We were having a conversation in the car about the two Wonkas. Not the two films, but the two cinematic versions of the character. In the original, Gene Wilder Wonka (GWW) had his creepy moments. Sure, everybody talks about that boat ride--obviously inspired by repeated listenings of Pink Floyd's "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn"--as being the pinnacle of GWW's freakiness. But for me, GWW creeps me out the most during the frame where he's got this vacant look on his face, silent, staring through the cogs of the Everlasting Gobstopper machine. Also when he gets that same look on his face and half-heartedly protests Violet's chewing of the gum that ends up turning her into a human blueberry: "No, little girl, you musn't."

(spoiler alert...don't read on if you don't wish to know anything about the new version)

But Johnny Depp Wonka is a different animal altogether. First of all, completely unlikable. A misanthrope. And, most strikingly, a deep aversion to traditional family life and familial structures defines Johnny Depp Wonka. In early scenes, he's visibly bothered by the parent-child relationships--and *not merely* because of the lousy parenting skills on disply (though that's certainly part of his aversion). Not only is he disgusted that Veruca's dad spoils her, he's disgusted that the two are connected to one another. In several scenes (and Johnny Depp brilliantly plays up these moments), Johnny Depp Wonka avoids physical contact with the kids or their parents. He's repelled by the very notion of nuclear family.

Late in the film (stop reading now if you don't want anything spoiled), Wonka tries to lure Charlie to leave his parents behind and come live with him at the factory. Until Charlie declines, it never occurs to him that Charlie would rather stay with his family. He looks at Charlie's parents and grandparents in disgust, partly because of their abject poverty, but mostly because of the absurdity of the parent-child bond. Sunken cheeks, bleached-out skin, costume, visible insecurity. The Michael Jackson comparisons are obvious (an abused child who grows into an adult constructing his own larger-than-life playworld that he invites children--but not their parents--into), but I swear Depp looks, talks, and acts more like the lovechild of the Food Network's Rachel Ray and The White Stripes's Jack White.

In short, the creepiness of the Wonka character is at a fever pitch. And on one level, the film could be seen as a meditation on the life of Michael Jackson.

Visually, the sequences inside the chocolate factory are absolutely stunning. As striking and different as anything Tim Burton has done. The oompa loompas are campy performance-vamps, whose musical numbers are part broadway, part Kraftwerk. This is the coolest musical work of Danny Elfman's career; he comes full circle from his days with Oingo Boingo (several of the Oompa Loompa songs really could be Oingo Boingo, or even Devo, songs!). And Freddie Highmore is a knock-out as Charlie. What a great actor...this makes me want to rent Neverland just to see this kid's performance. Many kid actors are clearly just on the screen because of how cute they are. Highmore looks like a real kid. For all of Depp's highjinks, Highmore keeps pace and is often the most talented actor on the screen. And there's a priceless scene with squirrles that I would have loved even more if I were still 10 years old. Many little kids (and/or maybe their parents), though, will probably NOT like the scene.

The only mis-step, in my opinion, is Johnny Depp Wonka's backstory. I liked how creepy he is in the present and the Freudian narrative was already there without actually narrating it explicitly. This version is more faithful to Dahl's novel, which as a kid I loved as much as I did the Gene Wilder film (still have the grey hardcover edition I read four or five times). This is what family movies should look like.