Firstly, I know there are some people with real facial disfigurements who are upset that the child wasn't played by someone with a real facial disfigurement, I can understand why. But as I have unilateral cleft palate myself which is similar, and that I have faced much discrimination throughout life, I feel that it was appropriate to cast a non disfigured child for the role. Why?
As unlike a child actor without disfigurement, he wouldn't be able to clean the movie makeup off afterwards. Therefore other kids and even adults in the real world would assume that the young actor is still in character, and bullied even more for it. The movie would only enforce the focus even more on his real life disfigurement in the real world and less on the young actor who played him. Therefore I feel that it was a wise insightful appropriate move. If it was an adult character then I would question it...Anyway back to the movie.
It was...okay. But it didn't nail the true reality. I identified with a few things especially the bullying. But as I suspected this movie would be which is a major problem of what a lot of these kind of movies have, it feels much too sanitised.
The kid dealt with it a lot better than I did, a lot better than many do. But maybe it is partly because he has the unrealistic perfect movie parents and idyllic family life, and of course as I also suspected would happen he receives a standing ovation from the whole school at the end and everybody is now his friend. As Gargamel would say "How sickeningly sweet!".
In the real world quite often the bullying is relentless right to the end where even teachers and head teachers don't do a damn thing, and even victim blame, and that it often continues into adult life with even more discrimination. I know this from hard experiences.
Another thing, as somebody else pointed out and I agree, the main character "Auggie" started talking about how you can tell someone from their shoes. Trust fund kid, crazy kid, hand-me-down kid.....Why would he judge others on their appearance when he gets similar treatment himself? I realise the narrative is probably there to suggest that everybody can be unfairly stereotyped, but for me in the real world I think we with severe facial disfigurements have learned to be less superficial than that.
I for one would like to watch a real hard hitting gritty realistic movie, from childhood through to adulthood where it doesn't have the perfect sanitised happy TV movie ending. Not necessarily a really sad unhappy ending, but at least an ending where it shows that he or she as an adult has learned life's harsh lessons the hard way through the continuing bigotry of others through life. Show the world what many of us still go through.
The child actor should again be played by someone who isn't disfigured for real for the reasons I gave, but an adult actor who is more emotionally mature and equipped to deal with the cruel comments in the real world should be played by an actor who is.
"Wonder" is a sweet movie with good intentions, worth watching the once and it does show a degree of empathy which we need more of these days, but it is still typical TV movie syrupy and sanitised melodrama stuff, that isn't near realistic enough. I hope one day it might inspire a more insightful educating movie and portray the true harsh reality of living with facial disfigurements (and maybe even added speech impairment) even if it alarms and shocks people. It would send a more powerful message and that would be a good thing.
5/10
As unlike a child actor without disfigurement, he wouldn't be able to clean the movie makeup off afterwards. Therefore other kids and even adults in the real world would assume that the young actor is still in character, and bullied even more for it. The movie would only enforce the focus even more on his real life disfigurement in the real world and less on the young actor who played him. Therefore I feel that it was a wise insightful appropriate move. If it was an adult character then I would question it...Anyway back to the movie.
It was...okay. But it didn't nail the true reality. I identified with a few things especially the bullying. But as I suspected this movie would be which is a major problem of what a lot of these kind of movies have, it feels much too sanitised.
The kid dealt with it a lot better than I did, a lot better than many do. But maybe it is partly because he has the unrealistic perfect movie parents and idyllic family life, and of course as I also suspected would happen he receives a standing ovation from the whole school at the end and everybody is now his friend. As Gargamel would say "How sickeningly sweet!".
In the real world quite often the bullying is relentless right to the end where even teachers and head teachers don't do a damn thing, and even victim blame, and that it often continues into adult life with even more discrimination. I know this from hard experiences.
Another thing, as somebody else pointed out and I agree, the main character "Auggie" started talking about how you can tell someone from their shoes. Trust fund kid, crazy kid, hand-me-down kid.....Why would he judge others on their appearance when he gets similar treatment himself? I realise the narrative is probably there to suggest that everybody can be unfairly stereotyped, but for me in the real world I think we with severe facial disfigurements have learned to be less superficial than that.
I for one would like to watch a real hard hitting gritty realistic movie, from childhood through to adulthood where it doesn't have the perfect sanitised happy TV movie ending. Not necessarily a really sad unhappy ending, but at least an ending where it shows that he or she as an adult has learned life's harsh lessons the hard way through the continuing bigotry of others through life. Show the world what many of us still go through.
The child actor should again be played by someone who isn't disfigured for real for the reasons I gave, but an adult actor who is more emotionally mature and equipped to deal with the cruel comments in the real world should be played by an actor who is.
"Wonder" is a sweet movie with good intentions, worth watching the once and it does show a degree of empathy which we need more of these days, but it is still typical TV movie syrupy and sanitised melodrama stuff, that isn't near realistic enough. I hope one day it might inspire a more insightful educating movie and portray the true harsh reality of living with facial disfigurements (and maybe even added speech impairment) even if it alarms and shocks people. It would send a more powerful message and that would be a good thing.
5/10