Wonder Wheel (2017)
(In French, On TV, February 2021) While Woody Allen’s life has long been shrouded in controversy, there was a definite shift in public opinion against him during 2017’s #MeToo movement, as tolerance for his numerous personal relationships with younger women became unacceptable to a much wider audience. In that chronology, Wonder Wheel may be the last of the pre-controversy Allen movies and also the last with plausible deniability from casual fans. (Meanwhile, everyone who watched Manhattan in theatres is left thinking, “Hey, we knew there was something off with the guy back in the 1970s!”) It’s also likely to be one of Allen’s last “normal” films — he’s 85, just wrote a controversial autobiography and is going to be scrutinized forever, so it’s unlikely that he’s going to go back to his past production rhythm that led to a very long uninterrupted streak of annual movies. For better or for worse, Wonder Wheel is unmistakably a Woody Allen film: While it starts in a nostalgic vein reminiscent of Radio Days by taking us back to 1950s Coney Island, the lighthearted autobiographical bent soon becomes a lead-in to a more dramatic tale of adultery and jealousy à la Café Society, then of criminal intention à la Irrational Man. In other words, we’re in familiar territory well beyond the Windsor typeface and jazz music. While the spectacular opening shot of Coney Island beach shows that even Allen can use CGI to draw a historical tableau, much of the film is in his usual low-key style, with a character providing a running narration to tie together the scenes without having to shoot the connective plotting material. Acting-wise, it’s a typically gifted ensemble: Justin Timberlake as the dreamy beach monitor moonlighting as an author and narrator, Kate Winslet as the tortured lead, the ever-cute Juno Temple as the object of temptation and Jim Belushi in an unusually effective dramatic role. Think the worst of Allen-the-man (I do!), but as a filmmaker he’s long been able to deliver something interesting, even on full autopilot. The story does show signs of not quite being a coherent whole, with far too many digressions before getting to a quick finale, but it’s still watchable enough. This being said, the meta-narrative surrounding the movie is more interesting: While Allen may be on the verge of being disgraced out of the industry (his two subsequent films have been haphazardly distributed following Amazon’s decision to break their five-film contract), it may be time to start looking at his body of work as near-finite. I’m still not sure how I feel about that—I’ve had trouble enjoying many of his films on their own merits, but he was a major filmmaker for a very long time and even his steady-as-it-goes output away from the high points of the 1970s–1980s has been consistently interesting as long as you go along with his specific blend of nostalgia, philosophy, crime and strong actor showcases. We may come to look at Wonder Wheel as the last of the films he made within the American film industry, and that’s something perhaps more interesting than what the film is about.
