The Hindu Business Line : Charlie And The Chocolate Factory

ITS hard not to like Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Based on Roald Dahl's book, it is a film meant for children. But its juvenile characters, along with Tim Burton's moody direction, would intrigue any adult mind as a comment on contemporary youngsters.

At the centre of the story is young Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore), of poor circumstances and living with parents and grandparents in a broken down house not far from the world's biggest chocolate factory.

Charlie's grandpa (David Kelly) had once worked in that factory, owned by the eccentric Willy Wonka. When competition infused spies to copy his recipes, Wonka sent away his employees and shut the factory gates.

The building remained a brooding presence in Charlie's town; his curiosity for the elusive Wonka further stoked by his grandpa's stories. Then one day, Wonka announces a contest whereby five children who find golden tickets kept in Wonka chocolate bars, would spend a day with him at the factory.

The winners come from different economic strata - there is the fat glutton who loves chocolate; the spoilt daughter of a millionaire used to getting everything she wants; the achiever type whose only focus is winning whatever she is into; the gaming obsessed kid whose reputation is founded on smartness; and there is Charlie. One of them would eventually get to win a fantastic prize. Question is, who?

Through Charlie's poverty, stroke of luck and the fate that befalls the other better-born children, the film plays on our emotions, mainly our desire to see values triumph. Where it strains the senses is by labouring the family and family-values bit too much, particularly because sizable portions of humanity have veered towards good values as enshrined in individuals. Just being part of three or four always, doesn't make anyone a great human being any more.

But hey, this is a story and a fantasy at that.

Freddie Highmore, last seen with Depp in `Finding Neverland,' fits the role of Charlie. Johnny Depp as Wonka is an experience that takes some getting used to.

But the Wonka magic comes alive between him and the cocoa bean-loving Oompa-Loompas, Wonka's workforce of look-alikes played by Deep Roy. An amazing bit considering that the scenes involving many Oompa-Loompas were not computer-generated but individually enacted by Roy.

"The audience may think it is all computer-generated, but that's not the case. If you see 20 Oompas, I did all 20 performances," Roy has said.

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory opened here today in the IMAX format. It would be screened in other cities in the regular format in October.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Drawing attention

Travel film festival on Kerala

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory — Morality lessons for brats

Floods in Mumbai dampen contributions to Ganesh mandals

Testing the water

We are still in comfort zone