"Wonder" is a sweet, heartfelt film that makes you feel good about the strong people who stand up to bullying, harassment and stupidity. It also features one of Julia Roberts' best performances, and serves as further evidence that young Jacob Tremblay, who plays Auggie Pullman, is one heck of an actor.
Auggie has a genetic condition that created craniofacial anomalies. Since birth, he has had 27 operations to make his face look more "normal," and to improve his sight and hearing.
Afraid of the teasing and bullying that would befall him, his parents have home-schooled him. But once he turned 10, they decided to send him to fifth grade at a mainstream school. That is where we enter Wonder, based on the novel by P.J. Palacio.
"I know that I'm not an ordinary 10-year-old kid," Auggie admits. He aspires to travel to outer space, and to emphasize this point, spends a lot of time wearing an astronaut's helmet that both invokes his dreams, and hides his face.
Once at school, Auggie has a kindly principal (Mandy Patinkin) and a kindly teacher (Daveed Diggs), but, of course, runs into a sea of stares, smirks and snide remarks from his fellow students. He expresses his love for all things "Star Wars" (and we see glimpses of his fantasies come to life), while the meaner kids dub him "Darth Hideous."
Auggie pays the price of being different. But he also makes a friend in Jack Will (a priceless Noah Jupe).
Meanwhile, his parents, Isabel and Nate (Roberts and Owen Wilson) are coming out of their skin with worry and second-guessing: Did they do the right thing? Should they just keep Auggie at home?
The story is told from several perspectives, with slightly different takes on what we are seeing. In addition to Auggie and Jack Will, we hear from Auggie's older sister, Via (Izabela Vidovic), who loves her brother deeply but has also spent her life as an afterthought in her parents' minds.
Director Stephen Chbosky ("The Perks of Being a Wallflower") does a nice job of sensitively guiding us through the story. But the script can also be a bit paint-by-numbers, and the character of Nate is woefully underwritten. We scratch the surface of these issues of acceptance and family and relationships, but we don't dig very deep.
On the upside, Roberts delivers a lovely, nuanced performance. She doesn't go overboard, which would have been the easy path for the role of the beleaguered mom. You feel the genuineness of her care and concern.
You may not recognize Tremblay behind all the prosthetics, but he remains one of our best young actors. (Make that, really young. He's 11.) He stole the show in "Room" in 2015, opposite Brie Larson, and helped that film earn four Oscar nominations.
In "Wonder," his Auggie wows us with determination and humanity and manages to fly high. Even without a space helmet.
