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- How Does Wonka End?
- What Is Wonka About?
- What Is Wonka’s Rotten Tomatoes Score?
In contrast to the beloved Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) and Johnny Depp’s various oddities in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Wonka (2023) portrays a much more innocent and starry-eyed protagonist. Based on Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel, the musical fantasy film tells the origin story of Willy Wonka.
Featuring chocolate overlords, authorities whose palms are greased with chocolate, two Dickensian monstrosities, and chocolates made of “bittersweet tears of a Russian clown”, Wonka is a pursuit of childlike wonder right till its ending.
RELATED: Wonka Director Clarifies the Film Adaptation’s Musical Nature
How Does Wonka End?
In the final act, Wonka (played by Timothée Chalamet) plans to retrieve the ledger that includes details of the chocolate cartel’s illegitimate activities. It is kept in a vault below the cathedral, and guarded by the corrupt Father Julius (the iconic Rowan Atkinson). With the help of Abacus Crunch (Jim Carter), Piper Benz (Natasha Rothwell), Lottie Bell (Rakhee Thakrar) and Larry Chucklesworth (Rich Fulcher), Wonka lets a giraffe loose in the cathedral, and sneaks into the underground lair with Noodle (Calah Lane) amid the ensuing chaos.
However, Arthur Slugworth (Paterson Joseph), Gerald Prodnose (Matt Lucas) and Felix Fickelgruber (Mathew Baynton) catch them in the act. After Wonka confronts him, Slugworth admits that he is Noodle’s uncle. When his brother died, Noodle’s mother, Dorothy Smith (Tracy Ifeachor), begged him for help when her newborn daughter got sick. He threw Noodle down the laundry shaft instead (so she does not claim the family fortune), and told Dorothy she had passed away.
The cartel traps Noodle and Wonka in a flooded chocolate chamber, before which the latter hands them a jar of chocolates to give to a green-haired, orange-skinned man. As he predicts, the three men devour the chocolates themselves, and the Oompa-Loompa Lofty (played by Hugh Grant) arrives, declaring that they have stolen from him. He rescues Wonka and Noodle, who then show the ledger to Officer Affable (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith from the 2017 Justice League). The chief of police (played by Keegan-Michael Key in a fat suit) is also implicated. While the cartel hovers in the air (due to Wonka’s gravity-defying chocolates), their enterprise is brought down when their chocolate reserve (laced with Wonka’s special ingredients) is released through a fountain.
Wonka finally unwraps the last chocolate bar given to him by his late mother (Sally Hawkins), and finds a golden ticket enclosed inside, which says, “It’s not the chocolate that matters. It’s the people you share it with.” He sees a vision of his mother in the crowd, realizing that she would always be with him in spirit — as she promised him to be when he would share his chocolate with the world.
Afterward, he reunites Noodle with Dorothy, and pays off his debt to Lofty. He also offers the Oompa-Loompa a position as the head of the tasting department at his new venture, which Lofty accepts. At the end of the film, Wonka croons a rendition of the classic “Pure Imagination”, while he and Lofty visit an abandoned castle. The ruins gradually change into a colorful chocolate factory, with a garden entirely made of edible chocolate (reminiscent of the famous Chocolate Room).
During the closing credits, Lofty tells the audience about the fate of the other characters: Abacus reunites with his family; Piper rejoins her friends; Lottie returns to her former job of operating telephones; and Larry reconciles with his ex-wife after a successful show. The final scene shows Mrs. Scrubitt (played by Olivia Colman) and Bleacher (Tom Davis) getting arrested for tampering with Wonka’s chocolates. They attempt to erase the evidence at first, by ingesting those poisoned chocolates, which consequently give them colored skin and hair (resembling Dahl’s characters from The Twits).
Although Paul King called the movie a “companion piece” to the 1971 film in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the ending of Wonka only works for a standalone story. It does not explain how the character becomes sardonic and reclusive later on, as he is widely known to be. Even though there is currently no news of a sequel, the ending does leave a curious gap between an enthusiastic Wonka opening his factory and a jaded Wonka giving Charlie Bucket a tour about twenty-five years later. King does give some insight in an interview with Total Film:
He’s cynical in some ways and he knows that there are plenty of rotten nuts out there who need to go down the rubbish chute, but, equally, he believes in goodness, kindness, and hope. There was a kernel of that I really held on to.
What Is Wonka About?
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Director |
Paul King |
|---|---|
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Cast |
Timothée Chalamet, Calah Lane, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Colman, Tom Davis, Hugh Grant, Paterson Joseph |
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Based On |
Roald Dahl’s characters from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory |
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Release Date |
15th December 2023 (United States) |
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Running Time |
116 minutes |
The opening number shows Wonka arriving from a seven-year sea journey at an unnamed town, aspiring to open a chocolate shop. As King tells USA Today:
There’s a lot of stuff in the choreography like Wonka stepping back as he goes down the steps and (using) the cane […] I like those little things where you can see, ‘Oh! That’s how he becomes the older Wonka from the Gene Wilder movie.’
By the end of the day, he is left with an empty pocket (after paying for expenses like the ‘daydreaming’ fine). He is coerced to stay at Scrubitt’s inn by her right-hand man, Bleacher, and signs a contract without going over the fine print (as he cannot read). The next day, he discovers he owes exorbitant fees (including charges for warming up by the fire), which he can only pay off with decades of servitude at Scrubitt’s laundromat. He joins the other indentured servants in the basement: Abacus (an accountant); Piper (a plumber); Lottie (a telephone operator); Larry (a comedian); and Noodle (who has “orphan syndrome”).
Wonka’s troubles worsen when he finds out that Lofty has been stealing his chocolates, as he unknowingly took cacao beans from Loompaland. The debt can now only be settled after the payment of “a thousand-fold” chocolates.
The top local chocolatiers — Slugworth, the ringleader; Fickelgruber, who retches at the mention of the poor; and the dim-witted Prodnose (all of whom are mentioned in Dahl’s novel for stealing Wonka’s recipes) — bribe the chief of police with chocolates to prevent Wonka from selling. Soon, the launderette workers help Wonka break out and sell his chocolates on the streets, without getting caught. They eventually open a shop, which is soon sabotaged by the cartel. The latter gives Wonka an ultimatum: they can pay off his friends’ debts only if he leaves and never makes chocolate again.
Wonka complies, and boards a boat to the North Pole. However, he realizes that Slugworth’s signet ring matches the one Noodle has. He decides to return, but finds out that the boat is rigged to explode. Along with Lofty, he swims to the shore and rescues Noodle (the only one who is not freed by Scrubitt, on Slugworth’s orders). The group then devises a scheme to expose the cartel’s crimes.
What Is Wonka’s Rotten Tomatoes Score?
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Wonka has a rating of 83% (based on 280 critics’ reviews). The critics’ consensus is as follows:
With director Paul King at the helm and some solid new songs at the ready, the warmly old-fashioned Wonka puts a suitably sweet spin on the classic character while still leaving some room for the source material’s darker undertones.
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