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Wonder Wheel

Wonder Wheel

Drama · Romance · 2017

The story of four characters whose lives intertwine amid the hustle and bustle of the Coney Island amusement park in the 1950s: Ginny, an emotionally volatile former actress now working as a waitress in a clam house; Humpty, Ginny’s rough-hewn carousel operator husband; Mickey, a handsome young lifeguard who dreams of becoming a playwright; and Carolina, Humpty’s long-estranged daughter, who is now hiding out from gangsters at her father’s apartment.

Movie details

Wonder Wheel

“Come along for the ride.”

2017 Drama · Romance 1h 41m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.2 / 10

32K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

32 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

46 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.4 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

The story of four characters whose lives intertwine amid the hustle and bustle of the Coney Island amusement park in the 1950s: Ginny, an emotionally volatile former actress now working as a waitress in a clam house; Humpty, Ginny’s rough-hewn carousel operator husband; Mickey, a handsome young lifeguard who dreams of becoming a playwright; and Carolina, Humpty’s long-estranged daughter, who is now hiding out from gangsters at her father’s apartment.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Wonder Wheel?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Woody Allen

Written by

Woody Allen

Kate Winslet

Kate Winslet

Ginny

Juno Temple

Juno Temple

Carolina

Jim Belushi

Jim Belushi

Humpty

Justin Timberlake

Justin Timberlake

Mickey Rubin

Max Casella

Max Casella

Ryan

Jack Gore

Jack Gore

Richie

David Krumholtz

David Krumholtz

Jake

Court is in session

Put Wonder Wheel on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Sentimental Softie

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Cool Ironist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.