Wonder (2017): Drama / Family

Wonder.jpg

Stephen Chbosky does his wonder once more – Yes, pun intended. Following the mind-blowing “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” (2012), he now pens the screenplay and directs “Wonder”. In a nutshell, a homeschooled child suffering from mandibulofacial dysostosis, also known as “Treacher Collins syndrome” (facial deformity), attends for a first time a public school, entering the 5th grade.

Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson do an amazing job as the parents who struggle as much as their kid, and Jacob Tremblay, being the kid, proves again he is a prodigy child actor. Izabela Vidovic, Daveed Diggs, and all the child actors shine in front of the camera, with everyone knowing who they are playing and why.

“Wonder” is the side of Hollywood which gives hope that studio films are not all about undermining human intelligence, explosions, or exploiting disabilities and minorities for profit. Its plot and subplots are bound together proportionally, creating a perfect equilibrium. It recognizes talent, maneuvres around and delicately avoids buffoonery, soppiness, kitsch and cliche, and definitely recognizes a$$holes when it sees them, in every shape, age, race or form.

Get carried away and let it appeal to your humanity. As reality is, unfortunately, far more inhuman…

You can find it here: https://amzn.to/2Stzcv2

Room (2015): Drama, Thriller

Room.png

An unsettling story that digs deep into your feelings. Larson and Tremblay deliver indescribable performances in characters who got heavily hit and knocked down by life but must find unfathomable strength to get up and move on.

Its development could have taken endless turns. Yet, as if years of claustrophobic torment is not enough, how a mother’s love can be accepted or repudiated by the rest of the world, with family coming first, is Donoghue’s sublime way to unfold it.