Starring: Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelly, Helena Bonham Carter, Noah Taylor
Director: Tim Burton
Rated: PG
MOST people are familiar with Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They have either read it as a child or parent, or seen Mel Stuart’s 1971 film version Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which starred Gene Wilder as the nutty but charming chocolatier.
Like Dahl, Tim Burton is a master at telling bizarre stories (Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow).
But while Burton’s adaptation is a more faithful adaptation of Dahl’s classic tale, it is also constrained by this and consequently less fun.
Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland) plays Charlie Bucket, a poor but good natured, happy boy who lives with his parents and both sets of grandparents in a tumbledown house that is overshadowed by a giant chocolate factory.
His father (Noah Taylor) works hard but makes little money, and each night his mother (Helena Bonham Carter) makes cabbage soup to feed them all.
Charlie is fascinated by the chocolate factory which he can see through his window before he goes to sleep each night.
Grandpa Joe (David Kelly) used to work there before all the employees were sacked, and he has many stories to tell about its brilliant but mysterious owner, Willy Wonka (Johnny Depp).
Nobody knows how Willy Wonka makes his famous chocolate without workers, but one day an announcement is made that Wonka is going to open his factory and reveal all his secrets to five lucky children who find Golden Tickets concealed in five Wonka bars chosen at random from the millions made and shipped all over the world.
One by one, four children discover the tickets in their Wonka bars – greedy Augustus Gloop (Philip Wiegratz), spoiled Veruca Salt (Julia Winter), ultra-competitive Violet Beauregarde (AnnaSophia Robb), and Mike Teavee (Jordan Fry), who is a belligerent video freak.
Unable to afford chocolate, Charlie despairs of ever seeing inside the Wonka factory, until one day he finds some money in the snow, buys a Wonka bar, and with one delicious bite, discovers the last Golden Ticket.
Adopting a reticence and feyness that is reminiscent of Michael Jackson, Johnny Depp makes his appearance as Willy Wonka only when the children arrive at his factory. Charlie is accompanied by Grandpa Joe and the other four children are escorted by one parent each.
Up to this point the tale is told charmingly, with Charlie’s family portrayed as loving and down-to-earth against a backdrop of homely but surreal sets.
However from here on, as the screen explodes into a fantastical river of chocolate, dream-like landscapes of candied trees and flowers, and assembly lines operated by armies of singing, pint-sized Oompa-Loompas, the mood deepens and becomes darkly moral.
Written in 1964, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory continues to excite the imagination because chocolate is such a powerful metaphor for everything that is delicious and desirable in life.
Like all powerful fairy stories it is rooted in reality, and says much about our subterranean longings and fears.
When the bad children misbehave and show their true colours (greed, selfishness, vanity and aggression), we see our worst selves in their reflection.
And when Augustus drowns in chocolate, Violet swells and becomes a giant blueberry, Veruca gets sucked down a monstrous drain, and Mike shrinks to the size of an Oomp-Loompa, their punishment frightens us, even though we rejoice in their come-uppance, and approve of revenge.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory isn’t suitable for very young children, but older children will be transfixed by the special effects, and revel in the outrageous behaviour of Dahl’s Rotten Children as much as they will identify with Charlie Bucket and cheer him on to triumph.
Others, however, particularly those fond of the 1971 film, may regret that this overly strict translation of Dahl’s story has pinioned not only Burton’s flights of fancy, but those of Johnny Depp, who gives an uncharacteristically flat and less than charismatic performance.
It’s always fascinating to compare films to the books that inspired them.
The better the novel, the more difficult it is for the film to replicate on screen what made the original so memorable.
There are many exceptions to this, of course, and cinema history is replete with them.
