Willy Wonka, but make it goth.

I’m not going to cover the plot of this movie, as I’ve pretty much exhausted the basic premise in the Willy Wonka post.  Instead, I’d like to talk about the interesting creative choices made in this film that I think, maybe, possibly, put people off of this remake.  This is a pretty close adaptation of the novel itself, and the family of Roald Dahl worked with Tim Burton to make sure the vision matched that of the late author’s.  The reason Tim Burton wanted to make this movie in the first place was because he disliked how the 1971 version translated the book.  The major difference between this adaptation and the novel is the addition of Willy Wonka’s backstory and the broken relationship with his father.  And… yeah.  It’s a choice.

I’m not sure what it is about Tim Burton movies and dysfunctional parent/child relationships, but it’s nothing compared to his depictions of misunderstood creative geniuses.  Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas (yes, he didn’t direct it, but he wrote it), Big Fish, Dumbo, Big Eyes…  So why not take one of the most famous literary creative geniuses like Willy Wonka and invent some trauma for him to overcome.

Sidenote: Like, I know this is a Disney parody, but I could not help but think of Shrek the first time I watched this.

This uneasy tone is set right off the bat with the opening credits chocolate making montage, replicated in sinister undertones, because this chocolate in built on PAIN.  Tim Burton also reused this intro in Sweeney Todd with the meat pies, which somehow makes me love that creative choice even more, like Mrs. Lovett is the Willy Wonka of her own murder factory.  

Instead of Willy Wonka limping into an excited summersault in the original, our first greeting at Wonka’s factory is from theme-park Small World-esque puppets that catch on fire.  Instead of a colorful, lit-by-sunlight chocolate room that the children look excited to explore and eat, Tim Burton’s version is shrouded in black like being buried in Willy Wonka’s dark candy prison, and the only person that looks excited to try any of the candy is Missi Pyle, god bless her.

Willy Wonka in this movie is just a weird, stunted man-child who never got over his daddy issues, and his factory and demeanor reflects this in every scene.  See, Willy Wonka’s father, brilliantly played by Christopher Lee, is a dentist that forbids Willy from consuming candy of any kind.  Willy is a prisoner of his medieval-looking dental headgear, and wishes he could experience the same joy from candy as his friends.  When he finally does get a chance to taste a piece of shitty Halloween foil chocolate, it starts a candy consumption frenzy which his father staunchly disapproves.  In fact, because Willy decides to learn how to make candy, his father literally picks up his townhouse and moves it to the middle of Siberia, essentially leaving Willy an orphan.  His father’s rejection made Willy disgusted by the concept of family, and he subsequently buried himself in his one joy – creating candy.  But you can still see his father’s influence, from wearing rubber surgical gloves so he can never truly touch anybody, and the pitch of his voice being high and delicate like that of a child.  He can’t even mutter the word “parents” and instead goes with “moms and dads” because that’s somehow better?  This depiction of a fragile Willy Wonka, when neither existed in the novel or the previous movie adaptation, is probably what garnered the most backlash.  I mean, we’re going from Gene Wilder’s most famous role to a tightly-wound, blue contact-wearing, Cheshire cat-smiling weirdo with a pageboy haircut.  The only good thing to come out of Johnny Depp’s depiction of Willy Wonka is this tiktok and nothing else.

Narratively, I understand why Wonka’s backstory was added, as it helps to explain why someone who already didn’t trust people would completely wall themselves off from society once they were betrayed by a few workers.  But having to resolve this plot point fucks with the pacing of the movie, as we’re left with a 10 minute epilogue where Charlie has to force Wonka to reconcile with his absent daddy.

After Charlie is the last child standing, Wonka offers his factory to him under one condition: he leave his family behind because you can’t run a chocolate factory with “a family hanging over you like an old dead goose”.  Charlie doesn’t even stutter – he outright rejects Wonka’s request because his family is the most important thing to him.  Tim Burton does do a terrific job at painting Charlie’s family as a safe, loving home with two parents that are trying their best to put food on the table and protect Charlie from the dire situation that they’re faced with.  It was really quite touching for Charlie to acknowledge and understand his family does what they can and loves him deeply.

Willy’s new candy inventions all taste terrible after Charlie refuses to help Wonka run the factory.  He asks Charlie what makes him feel better when he’s down in the dumps, and Charlie says his family, which Wonka scoffs at.  Regardless of his initial rejection of Charlie’s sentiment, Wonka asks Charlie to accompany him to the middle of nowhere artic wasteland where his father now lives.  What they discover is a shrine to Willy’s success, as the walls of his father’s house are framed full of newspaper articles tracking the history of the factory.  Wonka’s father recognizes his son after looking at his non-flossed teeth and they share a fucking awkward hug as Willy comes to understand that his father was just trying to protect him from dental rot, I guess.  The movie ends on a fairly sweet moment of Willy joining the Bucket’s for dinner, as he’s finally agreed to move Charlie’s family into the factory and assume a permanent place at their dinner table.

Do I hate this hard pivot that insinuates you should forgive your family members for scarring you for life?  Eh, not really, it’s fine for a movie “intended” for children.  But I do find it fairly interesting that each version of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” has a different moral message at the end.

1964: If you listen to your elders and don’t fuck around with shit you shouldn’t, someone will give you a chocolate factory.

1971: If you want something hard enough, you can Secret it into existence.  Also, protecting IP is super important.

2005: Riches are OK and everything, but your family is the most important thing in your life.  Awwwww.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the “musical” part of this adaptation, because I’m not going to lie to you, when I saw Charlie on the movie musical list I was confused, as I didn’t remember it even *being* a musical.

This movie was the canary in the coal mine for how well Sweeney Todd would be adapted to film.  I feel like directors who don’t like musicals try everything they can to erase what makes the stage musical work in order for it to be taken “seriously” on film.  Not I, a genius film auteur, will tolerate the embarrassment of one singing their emotions, even in movies that are specifically made for children.  Instead I will insert childhood trauma sinisterly hidden behind porcelain veneer smiles.  

To be completely fair, this could have been a result of Tim Burton wanting to keep this movie as close to the novel as possible.  The only songs that exist are moral message tunes from the Oompa Loompas.

The songs from the Oompa Loompas are pastiches of different decades, and just like… colossally uncool.  I know, it’s a weird thing to complain that a musical features uncool songs, but like… they’re trying so hard to be hip and with it.  It’s cringe is what I’m saying.  Competing against the 1971 version wasn’t doing this any favors, either.  Those Oompa Loompa songs have weaseled their way into the public consciousness in a million different ways, so replicating them beat-for-beat would probably have gone more poorly than completely reimagining them.  But I’m not sure having one dude dress like a 80s hair metal band and pretend to rock out is the solution.  The only time I think these songs succeeded was with Augustus Gloop’s exit.

This is not to say that the actor playing every Oompa Loompa did a bad job – his deadpan face worked for the majority of the movie, and I can’t imagine how taxing it was for him to put on like a million costumes and refilm the same songs over and over again… With the exception of the creative choices made to Willy Wonka’s character, I think the other actors in this movie did a spectacular job, especially the child actors.  Charlie Bucket was adorable and timid, but strong in his convictions when he needed to be.  Vercua’s ability to morph from syrupy sweet to an utter monster on the turn of a dime was truly impressive.  You really believed that Mike TeeVee would grow up to be a school shooter, and Baby Bradshaw was probably my favorite as eyes-on-the-prize gum-chewing champion Violet Beauregarde.

Grandpa Joe was also adorable, and I appreciated he was more tied to the story by being a former employee at Wonka’s factory.  I loved his “as a young man” flashbacks that featured him looking exactly like an old man.  The humor in this is fairly charming, from the earmuffs gag, to the quip about cannibalism, and the puppet burn center… they all got a chuckle out of me.  

I don’t want to give the impression that I dislike Tim Burton outright, because I think this post and the one on Sweeney Todd may have painted it that way.  Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure is one of my favorite movies of all time, and as a child I watched it over and over, along with the Beetlejuice cartoon.  My enjoyment of The Nightmare Before Christmas became one of my only identifiers in high school, and as a result I received several Hot Topic-purchased merchandise from my friends for every holiday and birthday.  Misinterpreting Edward Scissorhands as a romantic love story was one of my several cringe takes in college.  I mean, shit, he cast Christopher Walken as The Headless Horseman.  I like Tim Burton’s aesthetic and I appreciate his sense of humor; I just wish he would have leaned more heavily into the musical aspects of these movie adaptations instead of being afraid of them, because they both had promise.  Maybe his hesitation stems from the leftover trauma working at cartoon musical factory Daddy Disney.

This story is a cautionary tale against playing a murder hobo in your RPG.

Let’s uh… Let’s talk about teenage Colleen for a moment here.  I know, I don’t want to do it either, but context is needed and so it shall be provided.

Picture it: Grand Rapids, 2002.  15-year-old me, who very much loved shopping at Hot Topic, watching anime, and listening to System of a Down, went on vacation with my family for winter break.  My father, who enjoys a wide variety of artistic expressions (except The Offspring’s “chainsaw music”) procures tickets at the Civic Theater for an unknown-to-him musical, Sweeney Todd.  None of my family, in fact, had any idea what it was about, so it was to my absolute delight when a demented barber started lopping off heads with a razor at the end of the first act.  It was the most bizarre musical I had ever witnessed, and my only critiques were this:

1. The squealing noise they play every time a character is killed was too loud. 
2. Sweeney sang about his razors too much.
3. The love story was dumb.

Other than that, once I returned home, I downloaded whatever was available on Kazaa.  Sondheim has never, ever, been my jam, except for this musical, which I would defend with my life.  There is an entire song about baking people into pies.  It is the most on-brand thing that could have ever existed for the teenage version of me.

So imagine my utter delight several years later when it was announced that Tim Burton would be adapting it to screen, with Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Alan Rickman as the leads.  My favorite director and my favorite people and my favorite musical… I honestly couldn’t have cast it better in my mind.  I had a promo poster hanging up in my dorm room for months.  And then, I went and saw it and just… had some feelings I didn’t expect.

I think this story lends itself to film very well, because it gives a lot of opportunities of showing, not telling.  The stage musical has a repeating chorus of cast members explaining to the audience the show they are about to see (put a pin in this, we’ll get back to it), but we don’t need that in film because it can very explicitly show Sweeney Todd slitting throats of randos that just wanted a shave.  The uncomfortably up-close opening credits following the pie making process was brilliant and perfectly set expectations regarding the amount of gore your eyeballs are about to be accosted with.  The sheer amount of blood they could use in this slasher film gleefully elevated it to campy as fuck.  It was one of the great additions that obviously can’t be replicated on stage.  Well, not without a splash zone, that is.

The horror aspect is the best part about this movie.  I giggled incessantly during the Johanna murder montage.  Every thud of a person rocketing down the body chute cracked me up.  Also, the suspense during the first shaving scene with the Judge had me cringing, and I already knew what was going to happen.

The fantasy montages also worked fairly well.  “By the Sea” is kind of a throwaway song in the stage musical, but it’s genuinely funny in the movie, where its vignettes overtly show how different Mr. Todd and Mrs. Lovett’s idea of an ideal future are.

These changes come with a set of maybe unintended consequences.  I understand why the chorus was removed, and I support it generally, but without the character introductions, the first time we see Sweeney is on a boat with Anthony brooding that there’s no place like London.  There’s no fanfare, no shrill sopranos shrieking his name, no grand reveal.  Basically, it takes one of the most powerful entrances of a titular character, one that always causes the audience to spontaneously applause, and reduces it to a quiet moment of Johnny Depp trying out the ridiculous accent he’s developed for this role.

But the most egregious misuse of showing-not-telling is “A Little Priest”, god help me…

“A Little Priest” as a song is such a fucking masterpiece.  If you look up “dark comedy” in the dictionary, it’s just a picture of Patti LuPone offering an imaginary meat pie filled with people meat to George Hearn.  

It is 8-minutes of cannibalism puns that was written specifically for Angela Lansbury.  Patti setting up George with “How can you tell?” is my entire life.  The joy I feel every time I listen to this song is just… Heavenly!  It doesn’t need a fancy set or props because it’s based on their imagination.  Bringing reality to this seems completely misguided.

But what does the movie do with this song?  BUTCHER IT :ba dum tss:

It shows every person they’re willing to murder to boost Mrs. Lovett’s meat pie business, but does that really add anything?  Mr. Todd and Mrs. Lovett spend the majority of the song casing the neighborhood out the window, which I think is meant to convey their predatory nature.  The side-effect of this, however, is they are barely interacting, removing the majority of the magic of these characters finally understanding each other for the first time.  Sure, they dance a little, but then Sweeney starts leading Mrs. Lovett around by her neck, exerting his dominance over her, when the whole fucking point of the song is Sweeney realizing Mrs. Lovett is his equal.  He literally places his cleaver at her neck when talking about murdering the judge, even though she’s just established as his partner in crime.  This is the campiest song in the entire show, and while the rest of this movie has wholeheartedly embraced the ridiculousness of the entire plot, “A Little Priest” somehow comes off as tedious and slightly abusive.  And neither of them look like they’re having that much fun with it.

This song just highlights the miscasting of Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.  Their portrayal of these characters is understated in comparison to their stage counterparts, and part of this I understand because of the medium they’re working within.  What plays great to the back of the room in a stage production is going to look like overkill when the camera is a few feet from the actor’s face.  But Johnny Depp’s Sweeney looks bored and uninterested instead of brooding, and Helena’s Mrs. Lovett is so fragile that a strong wind would bring her down.  I really, really love Helena Bonham Carter in other roles, but she cannot sing.  Something as vocally demanding as the role of Mrs. Lovett is hard for a professional, as she has to persistently exert power so the audience believes she can hold her own against a literal serial killer.  Every time Helena sings, it feels so thin – she doesn’t hold out a single note, and nothing is at a volume louder than a whisper.  Her timid nature reads as victimization of her circumstances instead of a willing participant in this scheme.  

During the promo of this movie, it was mentioned several times that Johnny Depp was in a band, so having him finally get the opportunity to use his voice in a role was going to pay off.  It, um… didn’t.  I feel like the dumb accent he affected got in the way of him properly singing.   Tim Burton’s inability to not cast Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter in every single film he makes really did a disservice to this movie.  Like, there are more than a few actors and actresses that can sing this role.

The rest of the cast are excellent, which makes this so disappointing.  Typically Anthony and Johanna are played by people in their 30s, but they cast age appropriate actors in these roles who can sing, and who both captivated my attention.  The amount I care about the romance between Anthony and Johanna in the stage show is 0%.  In general, the whole situation is fairly unsettling, considering their “love song” is Johanna talking about killing herself to prevent daddy-fiancé from marrying her while Anthony pleads with her to kiss him.  The film does away with this, making Anthony’s obsession with Johanna appropriately creepy, and her willingness to go along with him as only a means to an end to get away from her captor.  I appreciated this interpretation, and felt it added depth to both their characters.

Jayne Wisener makes this very difficult song sound effortless and beautiful.  The later scenes where she alludes to her ongoing trauma from the entire experience was perfect to include.  It illustrates the consequences of being used as a human prize by people who give no consideration to her thoughts and feelings.

Jamie Campbell Bower gives me goosebumps when he sings “Johanna”.  His face has disturbing determination written all over it, and it makes me feel like maybe Johanna may not be in better hands with him instead of the judge or her murdering, but devoted father.  She really has no good options – it’s heartbreaking.

Sasha Baron Cohen and Ed Sanders also do a great job portraying Pirelli and Toby respectively.  Sweeney Todd came out shortly after Borat, and to tell you I didn’t expect this from him is an understatement.  

And Alan Rickman was perfect, as fucking always.  God, I love and miss Colonel Brandon.

I wanted to love this movie when it came out, and also upon rewatch, but I just don’t.  Maybe if it were my only exposure to the source material it would have held the same place in my heart as the stage show, but because I’ve seen Patti LuPone knock this out of the park, I’m always going to wonder what could have been.

Cast more broadway actors in movies, is all I’m saying.  It worked for Julie Andrews films, it can work again.