Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
The story of a young boy in the Midwest is told simultaneously with a tale about a young girl in New York from fifty years ago as they both seek the same mysterious connection.
Wonderstruck is a visually inventive dual-timeline narrative that interweaves a black-and-white silent-film aesthetic with a full-color 1970s story, giving it a genuinely distinctive cinematic voice. Todd Haynes's direction and Edward Lachman's cinematography are exceptional, with the silent sequences evoking the era's grammar beautifully. The child performances are earnest if uneven, and the adult supporting cast (Julianne Moore) adds weight. However, the plotting is thin and the emotional payoff of the revealed connection feels underwhelming and overly tidy, letting down the film's more ambitious formal ambitions.