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Review of Wonka (Neil Hannon/Joby Talbot)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if you appreciated the silly but heartfelt demeanor of the soundtrack in context, for the album is a faithful chronological representation of the somewhat anonymous but likeable and proficient songs and score.

Avoid it... if you cannot tolerate hearing two songs from the 1971 musical adapted into this soundtrack's dry and at times constricted ambience that is akin to smaller, contemporary stage productions.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Wonka: (Neil Hannon/Joby Talbot) Upon reacquiring the rights to Roald Dahl's classic 1964 tale of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," Warner Brothers sought to make more than just a third cinematic version of the same story. With 2023's Wonka therefore comes an origin tale to explain how Willy Wonka achieved success in the chocolate industry and built his factory. Along that journey, several characters inspired from other Dahl books are adapted to show how Wonka became captured in servitude and escaped with the help of a pre-teen girl, Noodle. Together, they battle the chocolate cartels of Europe in the early 20th Century, revealing crooked dealings, concealed familial relations, and, of course, Wonka's own chocolate recipes that win over the public. The format of Wonka retains that of a musical, utilizing a blend of songs and score adaptations that doesn't stray too far from the Leslie Bricusse and Danny Elfman methodology from the 1971 and 2005 movies. By combining this successful approach with the new angle on the titular character's past, audiences warmly embraced the picture. The goodwill earned by the multiracial cast, though, was tempered by irritation from those with dwarfism for the casting of the full-sized Hugh Grant as the Oompa Loompa who eventually joins with Wonka. The demeanor of the film is intentionally silly to a fault, as evidenced by Rowan Atkinson cast as a corrupt priest in league with the evil cartel. That attitude carries over to the soundtrack, which is a sometimes satisfying but occasionally awkward blend of original music and 1971 material by Bricusse and Anthony Newley. Integrating past and present for the songs is Neil Hannon, the Irish songwriter for the pop band The Divine Comedy and who had no previous experience tackling a movie musical of this type in 2021. Then adapting the melodies from those songs into the underscore of Wonka two years later is British composer Joby Talbot, who had dabbled in film and television music for decades but was likely buoyed into this assignment by his involvement in the scores for the Sing franchise.

Despite all of Hannon's efforts to devise a new narrative through his seven new songs for Wonka, many older viewers won't be able to hear past the inclusion of arguably the two most famous Bricusse songs from 1971, "Pure Imagination" and "Oompa Loompa" into the 2023 story. Their applications are as adept as possible once you assume that the decision had been made to include them at all. Hannon and the filmmakers spot them well into the appropriate places, though "Pure Imagination" does sound a bit dated in its structural style to really fit with the new compositions. Still, its full performance in "Pure Imagination (from "Wonka")" uses the most impressive orchestral and choral backing of any song. Meanwhile, "Scrub Scrub" borrows some rhythmic inspiration from "Oompa Loompa." Across both these older songs and Hannon's new ones, the ambience of the recording is not as expansive as hoped. The small orchestral and jazz band backing lacks the sweep that audiences may expect nowadays for a cinematic experience, and the arrangements here seem more in tune with lesser stage musical scope. The vocal performances are generally fine, though they are sometimes overwhelmingly frontal in the dry mix whereas the whistling and chorus are better layered with the background elements. The lyrics are eye-rolling at times but not offensively bad like those in the concurrent Disney flop, Wish. While the lyrics in the two "You've Never Had Chocolate Like This" songs are ridiculous along the same lines, the silliness of Wonka's whimsical lyrics in "For a Moment" conversely works wonderfully against Noodle's more sober lines as a representation of their disparate personalities. Of all of Hannon's new songs, "For a Moment" is the hidden gem, featuring the best melody and vocal interactions in the entire musical; whereas the song "A World of Your Own" was clearly meant as the headline song, it's the Wonka and Noodle storyline that quietly steals the whole show, with "Sorry, Noodle" using very cleverly inverted structures to serve as a de facto reprise of "For a Moment." It's easy for these heartfelt moments in the middle of the soundtrack to become lost amongst the glitzier action.

The early aspirational song, "A Hatful of Dreams," joins "You've Never Had Chocolate Like This," eventually the primary melody by the end of the musical, as the optimistic vehicles for Wonka's character, Timothée Chalamet's performances likeable. While "A World of Your Own" is meant as the familial connective tissue that completes the character's journey to stardom, that song's melody never really takes off like that of "You've Never Had Chocolate Like This." There are two villain songs, technically, both "Scrub Scrub" and "Sweet Tooth" utilizing the same propulsive rhythmic formations but only the latter informing the score to any great degree. When you toss in the two Bricusse songs and the various reprises, there are few breaks from singing in Wonka, eleven song tracks in total including Hugh Grant's two variations on "Oompa Loompa." Clocking in at just under 30 minutes on the primary soundtrack album is the bulk of Talbot's score, which relies almost exclusively on the melodies from Hannon's songs. There is no narrative that can survive in the score alone without the interspersed songs until the final ten or so minutes of the soundtrack, by which time Talbot's work occupies the soundscape without any musical numbers. The score cues are usually structured so that they serve as introductions and reprises to the surrounding songs, maintaining vital consistency though sometimes making one wonder why the short cues weren't simply combined with the songs more formally. The orchestra is sadly sparse in depth for much of the work's length, making the score sound small until the final cues of conflict and triumph. Again, part of this effect is because the ambience is so dryly constricted. The choir sounds oddly layered into the mix in some cues, too. Wonka's familial ties receive music box accents and Noodle is provided a less magical piano. The villains get metallic instrumentation, percussion, and bassoons as expected. There is a very cartoonish demeanor to the early and late cues, mirroring the haphazard pacing and instrumental personality of the songs. Talbot opens with a callback to Bricusse in "Pure Imagination (Opening Titles Version" but uses "Welcome to Scrubbit's" to preview the following "Scrub Scrub" song while referencing "A Hatful of Dreams" at its end as a faint reminder of the preceding song.

The applications of the various Wonka-related song melodies in the score for Wonka begins in earnest in "Flying Chocolatiers," which continues "You've Never Had Chocolate Like This (Hoverchocs)," and "Wonka's Case," which beautifully previews "A World of Your Own" with a touch of "Pure Imagination." Opening with "You've Never Had Chocolate Like This" is "Willy and Noodle at the Zoo," a softly pretty cue later hinting the chords of the subsequent "For a Moment," which is itself adapted into a spritely rendition in "The Letter 'A'" for the optimistic reading scene. With a wink and a nod, "Clock Tower" references "A Hatful of Dreams" in the clock's chime before the cue moves on to continued exploration of "You've Never Had Chocolate Like This." With genuine appeal, "Mamma's Secret" references "A World of Your Own" in its fullest dramatic orchestral moment yet. The late action suite begins with a reference to "A Hatful of Dreams" at the start "500 Monks, 1 Giraffe." That theme is eventually interrupted by "Sweet Tooth" references for the villains, and an adult chorus chants "Giraffe! It's a giraffe!" over an organ during the ensuing chase. It's silly and asinine, but it works. The "Sweet Tooth" theme continues to dominate in "Death by Chocolate," where it mingles with a quick "Oompa Loompa" moment before bloating up to epic proportions over organ backing. Later in that cue, "A Hatful of Dreams" interjects on the heroic side, and a solo piano references "Sorry, Noodle" nicely at the end after a tolling chime. Referencing the original "Oompa Loompa" theme is "The Oompa Loompa to the Rescue," which builds to a resolution fanfare for "A Hatful of Dreams" but is interrupted by "Sweet Tooth." Alternating between comical versions of the "Sweet Tooth" and "You've Never Had Chocolate Like This" melodies is "Noodle Gives Affable the Ledger," and "You've Never Had Chocolate Like This" is so boisterously dominant in "Chocolate Fountain" that the cue includes a huge finale with chorus singing the words "Never Had Chocolate Like This," though the enunciation is somewhat muffled. Together, the songs and score for Wonka are a strong fit for each other, but it's easy to get the impression that Talbot overperformed on somewhat average melodies from Hannon. The Bricusse songs are tastefully handled overall. The mix of whole product is so dry, though, that the life is sucked out of the performances. There's a great dose of amusing charm here, and especially with lovely Noodle material, the work's heart is definitely in the right place.

• Music as Written for the Film: ****
• Music as Heard on Album: ***
• Overall: ****

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 56:22

• 1. Pure Imagination (Opening Titles Version) (1:05) • 2. A Hatful of Dreams - performed by Timothée Chalamet and Cast (4:27) • 3. Welcome to Scrubbit's (3:16) • 4. You've Never Had Chocolate Like This (Hoverchocs) - performed by Timothée Chalamet (1:13) • 5. Flying Chocolatiers (1:27) • 6. Scrub Scrub - performed by Cast (1:50) • 7. Wonka's Case (3:05) • 8. Sweet Tooth - performed by Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas, Mathew Baynton, and Keegan-Michael Key (2:10) • 9. Willy and Noodle at the Zoo (2:26) • 10. For a Moment - performed by Calah Lane and Timothée Chalamet (3:22) • 11. The Letter 'A' (1:37) • 12. Clock Tower (0:49) • 13. You've Never Had Chocolate Like This - performed by Timothée Chalamet and Cast (3:49) • 14. Oompa Loompa - performed by Hugh Grant and Timothée Chalamet (1:05) • 15. A World of Your Own - performed by Timothée Chalamet and Cast (3:42) • 16. Sorry, Noodle - performed by Timothée Chalamet (1:28) • 17. Mamma's Secret (2:42) • 18. Pure Imagination - performed by Timothée Chalamet (3:08) • 19. Oompa Loompa (Reprise) - performed by Hugh Grant (1:05) • 20. 500 Monks, 1 Giraffe (4:24) • 21. Death by Chocolate (4:20) • 22. The Oompa Loompa to the Rescue (1:22) • 23. Noodle Gives Affable the Ledger (1:28) • 24. Chocolate Fountain (1:11)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.

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