candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker

[kindkit]

I watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory tonight, because I adore Gene Wilder.

What a peculiar movie. I can't imagine anything like it being made today. Was the recent-ish remake awful? I'll bet it was. I'll bet they started by turning Charlie from a sweet gentle boy into a rebel with an attitude.

Anyway, I kept feeling like behind the random moralizations and the tacked-on feel-good ending, there was a dark, strange, perverse story lurking, that we see only glimpses of.

Naturally I went to the AO3 looking for fic. Oh dear. I didn't even read any of it, and I still want brain bleach. These were not the dark, strange, perverse stories I was looking for.

Comments

[genarti]

I liked the recent-ish remake because it was (mostly) closer to the book than the earlier film. (Except for adding a weird and unnecessary subplot about Wonka having daddy issues because of a dentist father.) A lot of people I know disliked it, though, and I admit that I never clicked with the Gene Wilder movie because I'd imprinted on the book first and it's so very different in some key-to-me ways, so YMMV a great deal.

[lilacsigil]

I didn't like the recent remake though the kids and Grandpa Joe were completely fine - unfortunately they cast Johnny Depp as Wonka and he was doing the same act he always does now. And they gave him a pointless backstory with Christopher Lee as his dentist father.

[princessofgeeks]

The new one was not bad at all. My kids loved them both.

And you are right about the eerie things in the background of the first movie. I thought that as well.

[silveradept]

There's totally a strange and terrible story lurking behind the brightly-colored chocolate factory, and we only get little bits of it, in both the book and the Gene Wilder movie (he sold that idea completely).

The Depp movie tried to be more Tim Burton about it, and that landed wide of the mark for me in terms of enjoyment.

[starlady]

Gene Wilder's performance in that movie is so good. I wish they could have sutured him into the remake, or remade the film with him and the latter's budget. Depp was Depp and I can't recommend it. But Wilder, I think, understood the story lurking beneath the candy floss on some level.

[st_aurafina]

That is such a dark story, and Gene Wilder is terrifying. I think it was very true to the feeling of the books, at least, if not the content. At least the part where adults are menacing and incomprehensible.

But Gene Wilder is amazing, and I love that he threw himself into the part so utterly.