When I first heard that Todd Haynes’ film WONDERSTRUCK was centered around two kids living fifty years apart — one in the tail end of the 1930s and the other in the 1970s — I was puzzled. Todd Haynes directing a kid-friendly film? The same Todd Haynes who specializes in adult domestic melodramas like FAR FROM HEAVEN and CAROL? The auteur who garnered a lot of attention with SUPERSTAR where he carved up Barbie dolls to visually portray Karen Carpenter’s anorexia? The Todd Haynes who adapted James M. Cain’s MILDRED PIERCE and really laid into the petulant and monstrous nature of Mildred’s young daughter?!
However, almost immediately all of the Haynes hallmarks are present. Takes place in the 70s? Check. Mommy issues? Check. Daddy issues? Check. Gorgeous, vibrant cinematography? Check. Emotional needle-drops? Check. Scrutiny of personal isolation and rebellion? Check. It is a Haynes film through and through, although it being a family-friendly affair it does lack some of the more mature material Haynes is known for.
WONDERSTRUCK is a tale of two youths: Rose, a young girl living in the tail end of the 1920s and Ben, a young boy in the 1970s. Rose and Ben are running from their single-parent homes, both trekking out into the world in search of their estranged parent. In Rose’s case, she’s seeking out her mother in New York City, performing in a theatre production. Ben? He’s trying to find the father he’s never known, the father his mother never talks about, via a New York City address and phone number buried in a book.
One other facet they share? They’re both deaf.
Rose was born deaf and she spends her days enthralled by silent films. In one scene, Rose exits a movie house and finds herself surrounded by banners broadcasting that the theatre will be temporarily closed while they install equipment to enable them to screen talkies.
It’s a devastating scene as it dawns on you that the world of cinema, of moving pictures, of dialogue spoken through text, of feeling the theater organ’s notes, is an equalizer for Rose. Those around her feel the film the way she experiences life every moment of every day. The advent of talkies destroys that one comfort.
Unlike Rose, Ben is newly deaf. Before running off to NYC, he attempts to call the number on the aged bookmark. Unfortunately, he does so during a thunderstorm. Lightning strikes and shoots through the phone, rendering him deaf, which does not deter him from taking a bus from Minnesota to New York.
What follows for the two of them are wonders and adventures while navigating an imposing and often unfriendly city that bristles at their presence, a metropolis casually hostile to both Ben and Rose’s deafness. While that underscores their loneliness, it also amplifies their drive for comfort and understanding.
While WONDERSTRUCK leans on a lot of symmetry between Ben and Rose’s endeavors, it never feels treacly or forced. Does it contain a number of coincidences and convenient narrative contrivances? Yes, yes it does — it makes NYC feel interconnected in a way that one would find far-fetched in a small town, much less NYC — but it makes sense given the magical manner of Ben and Rose’s intertwined arcs.
WONDERSTRUCK is based on the novel of the same name by Brian Selznick, who also authored of THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET which was turned into Martin Scorsese’s similarly kid-centric film HUGO. Selznick also penned the screenplay, which nicely aligns with Haynes’ sensibility and lush and inventive visuals.
Selznick’s book capitalizes on the nature of words and images, dividing Ben and Rose’s journey into one conveyed by text and the other by illustrations. In this adaptation, the divide is portrayed through Rose portrayed in black-and-white, and Ben in color.
Haynes worked with his mainstay cinematography Edward Lachman, who instills a sense of interiority by often blurring Ben’s surroundings. Lachman also takes pains to utilize films stocks that best evokes and recreates the time period, such as the austere latitude of 20s and 30s films, as well as the brilliantly saturated grainy and grimy film stock of the 70s.
Dealing with any fictional portrayal of impairment can be fraught and insensitive at best, exploitative and hurtful at worse. Haynes took measures to handle Ben and Rose’s deafness with grace, not only by forcing his crew to roam around NYC in sound-canceling headphones, but also by casting Millicent Simmonds — a deaf actor — as Rose. Simmonds subtly displays the hurt, the sadness, the pain of not only her physical situation, but also the silent and distant emotional abuse foisted on her by her father. (Simmonds has since gone on to star in A QUIET PLACE and has been a huge booster for deaf advocacy.)
I don’t want to neglect Oakes Fegley as Ben, as he — and socially awkward Jaime (a wide-eyed Jaden Michael) as his aspiring friend — are all arms and legs and restless energy, especially as they chase each other around NYC’s American Museum of Natural History.
While WONDERSTRUCK is quieter than most films for youths, that silence lends an intensity that mesmerizes while possibly imbuing and enlightening those who can hear, and hopefully a balm and comfort for those who are not. While the nature of the material may not at first blush appear to lend itself to a film adaptation, what with the quiet vacuum of the page instead of the rattle and hum of a projector, Haynes and Selznick still manage to work their magic in a different manner.