Based on a popular kid's book, Wonder follows young child Auggie Pullman (Jacob Tremblay) who, after a life of homeschooling, is about to go to a public school for the first time. Pullman was born with a facial disfiguration that he's heavily self-conscious about, especially around his same-aged peers who are typically very upfront how they feel about his condition. This makes the prospect of going to a public school daunting, but his Mom, Isabel (Julia Roberts), Dad, Nate (Owen Wilson) and older sister, Via (Izabela Vidovic) are here to support him as he heads off on this imposing task. The story proper follows Auggie over the course of a year of school wherein Auggie finds himself suffering both social struggles and triumphs.
It isn't just Auggie's story that we follow in the course of Wonder though. In a surprising development that I was unaware of prior to watching this film, Wonder also takes the time to dedicate screentime to exploring the lives of certain supporting characters. Just as there's more to Auggie than his facial deformity, there's also more to supporting characters like Via or Jack (Noah Jupe), Auggie's first best friend at public school, than what you might suspect. This right here proves to be a clever maneuver in terms of storytelling since it allows the world Auggie inhabits to feel more fleshed out, even seemingly overly caricatured characters like Via's former best friend turn out to have more depth to them thanks to the way the story is willing to expand its scope beyond just Auggie's journey. Even Auggie's primary school bully ends up getting some light shed on his home life that feels extremely thoughtful and realistic to how the psychology of actual child bullies form.
That's a nice touch on the film's part that's complemented by the similarly smart story decision to make the majority of the kids Auggie interacts with at his school act like the ruthlessly abusive kids Charles M. Schulz used to chronicle in his Peanuts comics, which just makes the moments of sweetness or kindness stand out all the more. Of course, that makes a third act that tries to wrap up Auggie's school year on a (mild spoiler warning, I suppose) more upbeat note with tidy resolutions for the majority of his problems feel like a less than ideal conclusion to the story, but then again, this is a crowd-pleaser family movie, not Satantango, I do understand the desire to end things on an upbeat note, even if it feels like these happier resolutions could have been executed better.
The script certainly finds itself in the middle of the sort of flaws that usually mark these kinds of inspirational family films, namely a handful of plot points that feel contrived in their set-up and a recurring issue of having characters utilize inspirational quotes masquerading as actual dialogue. Those don't really weigh down the whole endeavor though thanks to the aforementioned ability of the script to really make its characters come alive (even Auggie's comic relief dad gets a sweet scene towards the end that sheds light on his perspective on the events of the story) and easy to get emotionally invested in. Sure, the dialogue has a tendency to sound corny, but sometimes, Wonder really does earn the right to use those corny lines and make them more impactful than they would be in a more run-of-the-mill project.
Helping those specific pieces of dialogue and other aspects of Wonder work so well is the fact that director Stephen Chbosky has carried over his ability to work well with actors from his previous film, The Perks of Being A Wallflower, and uses it to get some natural & engaging performances. This is especially true of Jacob Tremblay as our lead character with Tremblay proving that Room was no fluke and that he's a really talented kid actor able to portray Auggie as a realistic portrait of a young child. Just his timid body language from when he first shows up on-screen ensures that you'd have to have a heart of stone not to be immediately invested in his character's well-being. Julia Robert & Owen Wilson are fun as Auggie's parents while Daveed Diggs & especially Mandy Patinkin leave their mark as important teachers at Auggie's school. When you've got a cast this good working with a surprisingly engaging screenplay like this one, no wonder (no pun intended) Wonder ends up being such a good movie, one that had me crying quite frequently, I'll freely admit.
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