{"id":2709,"date":"2005-07-15T00:19:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-15T00:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/07\/charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory\/"},"modified":"2005-07-15T00:19:00","modified_gmt":"2005-07-15T00:19:00","slug":"charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/07\/charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory.html","title":{"rendered":"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>


I took my friend\u2019s 11-year-old daughter to see Tim Burton\u2019s adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory<\/a><\/i> last Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first half-hour is so good, I cried. Literally. At least one tear streamed down each of my cheeks. Noah Taylor and Helena Bonham Carter are so endearing as Charlie\u2019s parents, and David Kelly (1998\u2019s Waking Ned Devine<\/a><\/i>) is so good as Grandpa Joe, and all the characters are so giving and loving that I just wanted to spend the day in their cramped, skewed, little home.<\/p>\n

Charlie himself is played by the talented Freddie Highmore, who appeared last year in the tiger movie Two Brothers<\/a><\/i> and also co-starred with his Charlie<\/i> co-star Johnny Depp in Finding Neverland<\/a><\/i>; he played the boy after whom Peter Pan is named.<\/p>\n

And it was good to see AnnaSophia Robb on the big screen again \u2014 she plays Violet Beauregarde \u2014 and to be able to impress my young friend by telling her that I had \u201cmet\u201d Robb on the Because of Winn-Dixie<\/a><\/i> junket (my junket report<\/a>; my review<\/a>).<\/p>\n

(Come to think of it, I had a private 15-minute conversation with Bonham Carter nine years ago, too, when she was promoting Margaret\u2019s Museum<\/a><\/i> here in Canada \u2014 check page 3 of this PDF file<\/a> \u2014 but I forgot to mention that to my friend until afterwards.)<\/p>\n

But even as I let the tears trickle, I suspected the fun would come to an end once we entered Wonka-land.<\/p>\n

And, um, it did come to an end \u2014 at least for me. But since I have never read the book and have never cared for the 1971 Gene Wilder film<\/a>, I may not be the best person to comment on this.<\/p>\n

I do wonder, though \u2014 did the Willy Wonka of either of the earlier versions have unresolved issues to deal with, concerning his relationship with his father (played here by Christopher Lee, kind of doing the dad-figure thing in this film that Vincent Price did in 1990\u2019s Edward Scissorhands<\/a><\/i>)? This feels like a bit of unnecessary revisionist backstory-ing \u2014 kind of like what happened to the Grinch in Ron Howard\u2019s movie<\/a> \u2014 but I could be wrong.<\/p>\n

At any rate, between this and Big Fish<\/a><\/i> (2004; my review<\/a>), which also concerned a grown man estranged from his own father, it does seem Burton may be working out some issues.<\/p>\n

And all the buzz about Depp resembling Michael Jackson actually distracted me from trying to appreciate his performance on its own merits. I kept thinking Michael, Michael, Michael \u2026<\/p>\n

Anyway, suffice to say Tim Burton is a real hit-and-miss director for me, and this film was mostly a miss. But only mostly.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I took my friend\u2019s 11-year-old daughter to see Tim Burton\u2019s adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last Saturday. The first half-hour is so good, I cried. Literally. At least one tear streamed down each of my cheeks. Noah Taylor and Helena Bonham Carter are so endearing as Charlie\u2019s parents, and David Kelly (1998\u2019s Waking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nCharlie and the Chocolate Factory<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I took my friend's 11-year-old daughter to see Tim Burton's adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last Saturday.The first half-hour is so good,\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/07\/charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I took my friend's 11-year-old daughter to see Tim Burton's adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last Saturday.The first half-hour is so good,\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2005\/07\/charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-07-15T00:19:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/7991\/933\/400\/charlieandthechocolatefactory.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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