In Wonderstruck, Todd Haynes weaves together two stories that are not just parallel, but effectively mirror images of each other. It’s a device that many have found contrived, but I enjoyed the unconventional structure, plus the unfussy approach to disability in a film that is aimed at younger audiences.
Millicent Simmonds, who also appears in the newly released A Quiet Place, stars as Rose, a deaf girl, in a black-and-white segment set in the 1920s. Haynes uses deaf actors for many of the key roles in this strand, which nods, through score and design, to the tradition and techniques of silent cinema. The second story features Oakes Fegley as Ben, a boy from the 70s midwest who has lost his hearing as a result of an accident. In contrast to Rose’s story, Ben’s is colour-saturated and almost hyperreal.
There’s an elegant symmetry to these intertwined tales, which started life as a semi-graphic novel by Brian Selznick. Both children are without mothers; both set out on a solo quest to New York; both end up in the Museum of Natural History. And while the film’s conclusion is needlessly dragged out, gorgeous work by cinematographer Edward Lachman, costume designer Sandy Powell, production designer Mark Friedberg and, particularly, composer Carter Burwell all help to carry the film.
