Wonder: Review

• This is a NON-Spoiler review for Wonder.

• Plot Summary: "A ten-year-old boy named Auggie with a facial deformity (Jacob Tremblay) attends school for the first time when he begins the fifth grade. With the support of his mother (Julia Roberts) and father (Owen Wilson), he learns how to make friends and adjust to his new school."

• I enjoyed Wonder. I think that it was a good story but I thought it was a bit rough in its execution. I have never seen Stephen Chbosky's first movie ‪The Perks of Being a Wallflower‬. He's even about to direct a Prince Charming movie for Disney......which sounds dumb. So I'm not familiar with this directors work. I understand it's extremely hard to make movies and I'm not going to attack anyone for trying. But to me, it did feel like this was directed by an amateur director.

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• The person that shined the most to me in this movie was Jacob Tremblay who plays Auggie. I plan on seeing Room at some point. Jacob Tremblay is great in this movie. Because of him, you instantly just fall in love with the kid. Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson are both really good as Auggie's parents. Owen Wilson, I thought was a really entertaining dad. They both do a great job in their scenes when they're connecting with Auggie. There are some other actors that I want to give credit to, which brings us into the flaws of the movie.

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• There are quite a few times when the story turns away from Auggie and focuses on other characters. I really didn't like when the story did this. For example, a big piece of the runtime is dedicated to Auggie's sister played by an actress named Izabela Vidovic. I just really wasn't all that interested in completely dedicating the story to separate characters instead of organically incorporating them into the story. I thought that Izabela Vidovic was very good with what she was given but I just don't think that it was necessary to completely drag the story somewhere else. I do think it was necessary for these characters story to be told but just not in the way that it was. And it felt a lot like they were trying to find a way to fill time.

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• This movie really felt like an independent movie at times in a bad way, unfortunately. Some scenes just felt very rough. The editing was really rough sometimes. The cinematography is really weird sometimes. I thought the score was pretty boring. And the writing was kinda hit and miss for me. Some of the kids in the school felt a bit stereotypical to me. A lot of the times the script decided to tell and not show which I didn't like. I thought the structure was really rough as well especially when it veers from Auggie's story. There's some dialogue that I thought could definitely be better. There's just some pretty big story problems, in my opinion. Sometimes the writing really feels like it's trying way too hard to make you connect. But despite all this, there were quite a few times when the story wanted you, and it has you. Anytime a kid is being an absolute colon to Auggie, or Auggie is interacting with his parents, you are there. The story really grabs you at points.

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• So despite all these flaws, I think this movie succeeds at the story it wants to tell even though it was rough in the execution. It was great watching Auggie's story about imagination and connection and family support. And you get used to his face in a flash. After the first scene it never even phased me. And the story really makes you get behind the characters at points. I do think that Coco is a better movie and that should be higher up on your priority list. So despite all its flaws, I enjoyed Wonder. My grade for Wonder is a B