Wonder (2017)

My daughter loved this. She's eleven, sat completely rapt for the full running time, and came out of it wanting to talk about kindness and how people treat each other. And honestly? Good. That's exactly what a film like Wonder should do for a kid. The trouble is, I'm not eleven, and sitting beside her, I spent a fair portion of those nearly two hours quietly waiting for the film to become something more than perfectly pleasant.

The story follows a young boy with facial differences as he navigates his first year at mainstream school, and the message at its heart, about empathy, about looking past what you see on the surface, is genuinely worth telling. R.J. Palacio's source novel is beloved for good reason, and the film treats the material with real sincerity. There are moments, quieter ones mostly, that carry some genuine warmth. It earns those moments. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

But here's where it starts to unravel for me as an adult viewer. The film runs close to two hours, and it does not have two hours' worth of story to tell. Emotional beats that should hit once and land hard are revisited, restated, underlined. Subplots drift in and out without building to anything that feels properly resolved. The structure shifts perspective between several characters, which apparently works beautifully in the book. On screen, though, it fragments the momentum and leaves the whole thing feeling episodic and emotionally spread thin. You get little windows into each character's world, but you never really live in any of them long enough.

The casting is a mixed bag. Julia Roberts brings a quiet, grounded grace to the mother, and there are scenes with her that do genuinely move. But Owen Wilson as the father is a persistent problem. He's likeable, he's charming in that loose, easy way he always is, and that's precisely the issue. The role needs someone with a bit more weight behind the eyes, someone who can suggest the private worry of a parent trying to hold everything together while keeping things light for the family. Wilson's detachment reads less like restraint and more like disengagement. He never quite feels like he's in the same film as everyone else.

Visually, the whole thing is polished and bright and thoroughly safe. Nothing about the way it's shot or assembled takes a risk or makes a bold choice. It sits comfortably in the middle of the road and waves pleasantly at the passing traffic. There's a version of this story that could genuinely challenge an audience, that could make you uncomfortable in the right ways, that could explore the messiness of how families cope and how cruelty operates in school corridors. This isn't that version. It smooths everything out until the edges are gone.

I thought about Beautiful Boy (2018) while watching, another family drama where the emotional weight of the source material doesn't quite translate to screen in the way you hope it will, and where strong performers do their best against a structure that keeps getting in their way.

Look, Wonder is not a bad film. It's warm, it's hopeful, it means well, and for the audience it's clearly aimed at, it does its job. If you've got a child of roughly the right age, watch it with them. The conversation you have afterwards might well be worth more than the film itself. My daughter reminded me of that.

But strip away the good intentions and what you're left with is something overly long, emotionally shallow in the places it should be deepest, and frustratingly unwilling to push beyond "very nice." It's the kind of film you'd describe to someone as "fine, it was fine." A warm hug that you've forgotten by bedtime.

Two and a half stars.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 2017  | Watched: 2026-05-16

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Lionsgate+ Amazon Channel
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: fuboTV · MGM+ Amazon Channel · Philo · MGM Plus Roku Premium Channel
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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Related on Movies With Macca

More with Jacob Tremblay: Luca (2021)
More from the 2010s: Beautiful Boy (2018) · The Witch (2015) · What We Do in the Shadows (2014) · Imperial Dreams (2014)
More family: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anastasia (1997) · Toy Story 4 (2019)
More drama: Viy (1967) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018) · Earth (1930)