Wonder is based on a best-selling book of the same name for young adults, which a quick Google tells me means people aged about 12-18.
In light of this and despite my desperate desire to still be considered young, I assumed that since I'm not even close to 12-18 I wasn't the exact target market for this film but in the session I was at at least, it was mainly adult adults (ie old adults... gaaaarrrrrr!).
Wonder centres around the life of a 10 year old boy Auggie Pullman who is living with significant facial deformities caused by Treacher Collins syndrome. To cut to the chase on how the story unfolds, he starts school for the first time and, well, let's just say kids can be real little jerks.
His parents are played by Owen Wilson and Julia Roberts and they're both terrific, bringing irreverent light and protective shade to their respective roles. But I save the biggest acclaim for the actor who plays Auggie, Jacob Tremblay. Some of you might recall me raving about him (you remember everything I say about everyone, right?) about a year ago when he was in Room with Brie Larson and he's just as good in this. He wears make-up and prosthetics to portray the facial deformities which I imagine adds a degree of difficulty and he still delivers an excellent performance.
Whilst I'm perhaps not the primary target of this film (aforementioned 12-18 year olds and parents, I guess), I'd certainly be the secondary audience and by golly, they got me. I happened to have eight tissues in my bag and by the end of this film they were all scrunched up balls of gross-ness and all my eye makeup had gone AWOL. I mean, sure, this film is one of the most predictable I've ever seen but it kept me interested and certainly I was engaged with the lives of the characters, as evidenced by the river of tears.
Thankfully there's some kids who emerge from the crowd at Auggie's school to show some kindness (cue more tears) and renew faith in humanity. The neat bow it's all tied up in at the end is both predictable and not believable, but eight wet tissues speak for themselves, I think.
I'll finish by stepping up on my soap box to say that if you have kids, this film will show them in a way they can understand just how important it is to just be kind and to my mind that's much more important than whether they've learned how to say "Where is the toilet?" in Japanese. (Can you tell I don't know what happens in schools these days?!)
Here's a 3.5 star review from news.com.au which I reckon is fair, if you want to read more.
Trailer here. In cinemas Thursday 30 November.