Wonka before the chocolate factory

Without the sinister overtones of Roald Dahl, but with wonderful actors, sets, and songs

Since being written in 1964, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” has undergone two adaptations: in 1971, with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, and in 2005, when Tim Burton gave the role to his then favorite Johnny Depp. Both follow to the letter the beloved children’s novel by Roald Dahl with its inherent sinister wit, and colorful perfidy. This Christmas, Willy Wonka, the chocolate master, returns without the weight of the book’s legacy on his shoulders. “Wonka” is a prequel in which the hero is revealed as a young, naive idealist, ready to sweeten the lives of everyone around him almost for free. It remains a mystery what future metamorphoses turned this lovable character into the macabre capitalist whose creations taste more like disinfectant, but Paul King’s film does not deal with that. He’s the director of Paddington and Paddington 2 – if you’ve seen them, you know they’re heartwarming family films, combining the comic with the sentimental, the old-fashioned with the modern.

“Wonka” is also sugary – a story about a dream that, on the way to its realization, wins friends, punishes villains, and everything is driven by a chocolate craving. The screenplay by King and his co-author Simon Farnaby is rich in delicious, wacky details, the scenography and costumes are gorgeous, and the Bulgarian dubbing of the numerous songs is at a high level. Well, the idea that all of life’s difficulties (even death) can be conquered with…chocolate may give the more squeamish viewers diabetes, but Wonka is wrapped in such an attractive wrapper that they end up they do not object.

“Dune” and “Call Me by Your Name” star Timothée Chalamet, with a pleasant baritone, full of surprise top hat and youthful daring, arrives in London after years of wandering on ships. He carries the memory of his late mother (Sally Hawkins) and unseen dessert recipes, which he presents to the citizens with conjuring skills. His naivety brings him head-to-head with the local shock cartel, whose greedy triumvirate will do anything to take him down. But before that – and with Hotel of Horrors, played by Olivia Colman (unrecognizable), who locks him up to pay eternal debts in her underground laundromat along with a few other wretches. All this is presented in the form of a classic musical from the middle of the last century, with songs, dances, and chocolate springing from all sides.

Hugh Grant has a brief but vivid (and literal, green-haired, orange-complexioned) role as the franchise’s chronologically first Oompa Loompa: the slaving ranks of minions in the factory are still only the future. It’s not bad to see Mr. Bean, too, that is. Rowan Atkinson is a corrupt priest with a sweet tooth.

Cozy sweet, moderately eccentric, visually sumptuous, and completely devoid of Roald-Dahl ironic cruelty, Wonka is marketed as a Christmas movie for kids and parents alike. In the absence of a clear box office champion sprinting towards the end of the year (something that in previous winters has been done by giants like Avatar 1 and 2, Star Wars, or Spider-Man: No Way Home), it looks like a -the good deal over the half-drowned Aquaman sequel trying to squeeze the last few dollars out of the sinking comic book adaptation genre. Its good-natured escapism is the complete antithesis of the literary archetype, but with the help of great acting and the songs of Neil Hannon of the Northern Irish band The Divine Comedy, it’s a perfectly decent film for the festive season. Something like this would be served to us by “Disney” if they weren’t too busy failing.