WonkaPEOPLE Review: Timothée Chalamet Stars as the World's Favorite Candy Man

Mar. 15, 2025

Timothée Chalamet in ‘Wonka’.Photo:Warner Bros. Pictures

Warner Bros. Pictures

What’s aWonka?Why, it’s a younger, earlier, nicer Willy Wonka, and it comes out of this magical machine right here — the Onka-Donka-Wonka Prequilizer! Come on, everyone, gather round — we’ll show you how it works!

Up top, you’ll observe, is a wide funnel. That’s our starting point. Do you see? That’s where you insert Willy Wonka.

“WhichWilly Wonka?” you ask. Well, it can be the original one from the Roald Dahl book or the Gene Wilder one from the 1971 movie. Justnotthe Johnny Depp Willy Wonka, the one with Anna Wintour hair in the 2005 movie. You already sawthatWilly’s childhood story in a flashback. Remember? He was a sad little boy whose dad was a dentist, and his dad made him wear huge braces that crucified his entire mouth. And the kid wasn’t allowed to eat candy!Yuck.No thank you, Tim Burton!

Okay! Now we put Willy into the funnel — head or feet first, makes no difference. (Only don’t forget the tall hat!) That’s right, pack him in good! Now we pull down that big leveraaaaand—stand back!The body is sucked right in —shwoop!— then it begins making its way through dozens of looping pipes that squirgle, gurgle whistle and shriek. (Hold your ears! It’s louder than an MRI!)

Now, see the plumes of purple smoke coiling up from from the vents? That’s the sign that even the teensiesthintof danger, adventure or scariness is being burned away — burned off like sin! And sure enough, that illuminated blue panel is blinking its message:DONE! SAFE! ALL GOOD!That means you don’t have to worry about Willy Wonka trigger warningsever again. No more little girls turning into blueberries! No more squirrels!

Got all that? Great! Now if we can all gather around the big exit chute —

Wow!Just look at all those clouds of pink cotton candy! Now the clouds are billowing apart like the waves that bear Venus on her half-shell, and when they clear we have —Timothée Chalomet, a dewy Willy Wonka who looks barely old enough to vote.Yummy! Yay!

Any questions?

Oh — you’re a parent and you’d appreciate it if we drop all the sardonic whimsy and just get on with the usual review. Fine!

And Chalamet gives an absolutely lovely performance. Slender as a peppermint stick and endearingly sleepy-eyed,  he makes an unusually romantic Wonka. You may be slightly disturbed if you remember that he was also an alluringly sleepy-eyed, unusually romantic cannibal inBones and All.But kids won’t know that. He generates the soft, kindly glow of a Christmas-tree light, and in his slim burgundy topcoat he has the vintage pop glamour of a  Vivienne Westwood model.

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Chalomet and Hugh Grant as an Oompa Loompa.Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

As to the story, it’s a jumble sale of bits and pieces from Dahl, Dickens andMary Poppins.

He lives in what fans of the Gene WilderWonkamovie would calla world of pure imagination, but it could also be defined as a total disconnect from reality.

At any rate, the local chocolate cartel is determined to freeze Willy out, with the help of a corrupt constable (Keegan-Michael Key). The members of the cartel secretly congregate in a subterranean lair far beneath the local cathedral, where the main aisle is  lined with chanting, chocoholic monks.

No worries, though. Everything turns out perfectly happilicious. And Willy’s mother does show up — in a sense — so never mind what we just said about hard candies.

Gene Wilder as the first movie version of Wonka.

But Chalamet’s Wonka isn’t a teddy bear, he’s a human being, a sort-of adult, and we know his very peculiar future: Does it matter that we’re never given so much as a glimmer of how this this young Wonka could evolve into Gene Wilder’s version, dubiously polite with occasional hints of madness, or Dahl’s, bursting with energy and chortlingly indifferent to the harsh moral punishment in store for the kids at his factory? (The book isSe7nfor children.)

It does matter, actually, if only to prevent tooth decay from all that sugar.

Wonkais now playing in theaters.

source: people.com