Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Twice a day, on his way to and from school, little Charlie Bucket had to walk right past the gates of the factory.  And every time he went by he would begin to walk very, very slowly, and he would hold his nose high in the air and take long deep sniffs of the gorgeous chocolatey smell all around him. Oh, how he loved that smell!  And oh, how he wished he could go inside the factory and see what it was like.

 Roald Dahl

                Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

By Madelyn Miller

This movie fulfills one of my ultimate fantasies: Chocolate in every form. I have to get my own copy so I can sit around and fantasize about chocolate for 88 uninterrupted minutes without gaining a pound. If only there was a man like Willy Wonka who loved chocolate as much as I do. Someone needs to start a dating service for people obsessed with chocolate. Only there could I find someone truly compatible. 

Acclaimed director Tim Burton brings his vividly imaginative style to the beloved Roald Dahl classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, about eccentric chocolatier Willy Wonka (Johnny Depp) and Charlie Bucket (Freddie Highmore), a good-hearted boy from a poor family who lives in the shadow of Wonka’s extraordinary factory.

Most nights in the Bucket home, dinner is a watered-down bowl of cabbage soup, which young Charlie gladly shares with his mother (Helena Bonham Carter) and father (Noah Taylor) and grandparents.  Theirs is a tiny, tumbledown, drafty old house but it is filled with love.  Every night, the last thing Charlie sees from his window is the great factory, and he drifts off to sleep dreaming about what might be inside.

For nearly fifteen years, no one has seen a single worker going in or coming out of the factory, or caught a glimpse of Willy Wonka himself. Yet mysteriously, great quantities of chocolate are still being made and shipped to shops all over the world.

One day Willy Wonka makes a momentous announcement.  He will open his famous factory and reveal “all of its secrets and magic” to five lucky children who find golden tickets hidden inside five randomly selected Wonka chocolate bars.

Nothing would make Charlie’s family happier than to see him win but the odds are very much against him as they can only afford to buy one chocolate bar a year, for his birthday.

Indeed, one by one, news breaks around the world about the children finding golden tickets and Charlie’s hope grows dimmer.  First there is gluttonous Augustus Gloop, who thinks of nothing but stuffing sweets into his mouth all day, followed by spoiled Veruca Salt, who throws fits if her father doesn’t buy her everything she wants.  Next comes Violet Beauregarde, a champion gum chewer who cares only for the trophies in her display case, and finally surly Mike Teavee, who’s always showing off how much smarter he is than everyone else.

But then, something wonderful happens.  Charlie finds some money on the snowy street and takes it to the nearest store for a Wonka Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight, thinking only of how hungry he is and how good it will taste.  There, under the wrapper is a flash of gold.  It’s the last ticket.   Charlie is going to the factory!  His Grandpa Joe (David Kelly) is so excited by the news that he springs out of bed as if years younger, remembering a happier time when he worked in the factory, before Willy Wonka closed its gates to the town forever.  The family decides that Grandpa Joe should be the one to accompany Charlie on this once-in-a-lifetime adventure.

Once inside, Charlie is dazzled by one amazing sight after another.  Wondrous gleaming contraptions of Wonka’s own invention churn, pop and whistle, producing ever new edible delights.  Crews of merry Oompa-Loompas mine mountains of fudge beside a frothy chocolate waterfall or ride a translucent, spun-sugar, dragon-headed boat down a chocolate river past crops of twisted candy cane trees and edible mint-sugar grass.  Marshmallow cherry creams grow on shrubs, ripe and sweet. Elsewhere, a hundred trained squirrels on tiny stools shell nuts for chocolate bars faster than any machine and Wonka himself pilots a  glass elevator that rockets sideways, slantways and every which way you can think of through the vast and fantastic factory.

Almost as intriguing as his fanciful inventions is Willy Wonka himself, a gracious but most unconventional host.   He thinks about almost nothing but candy – except, every once in a while, when he seems to be thinking about something that happened long ago.  It’s been said that Wonka hasn’t stepped outside the factory for years.  Who he truly is and why he has devoted his life to making sweets Charlie can only guess.

Meanwhile, the other children prove to be a rotten bunch, so consumed with themselves that they scarcely appreciate the wonder of Wonka’s creations.  One by one, their greedy, spoiled, mean-spirited personalities lead them into all kinds of troubles that force them off the tour.

When only Charlie Bucket is left, Willy Wonka reveals the final secret, the absolute grandest prize of all: the keys to the factory itself.   Long isolated from his own family, Wonka feels it is time to find an heir to his candy empire, someone he can trust to carry on with his life’s work and so he devised this elaborate contest to select that one special child.  What he never expects is that his act of immeasurable generosity might bring him an even more valuable gift in return.

This film is rated PG by the MPAA for “quirky situations, action and mild language.” Johnny Depp says he especially appreciates, “the unexpected twists in Dahl’s writing.  You think it’s going in one direction and then it slams you with another alternative, another route, and makes you think.  At its center, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a great morality tale.  But there’s also a lot of magic and fun.”

This movie is perfect for adults and children. And it is so well done, you don’t even have to love chocolate to enjoy it.

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