With Wonderland, gifted director Michael Winterbottom (Jude and Welcome to Sarajevo, to name two of his best) becomes the simmering apex at which Mike Leigh, John Cassavetes, and Lars Von Trier intersect. He may be the most chameleonic Brit working behind a camera today, for this is the first time Winterbottom has tempted such a description--the prolific filmmaker consistently fabricates a style to suit the story's needs, never one to shy away from a project just because he hasn't done anything similar to it before. There are motifs in his body of work, sure, although they have an incidental quality about them (exceptionally cogitative children, shockingly executed birth and death scenes, etc.); if Winterbottom imposes anything upon material, it's the occasional lyrical montage.
Perhaps there are too many of these diversions this time around, roaming shots of South London's night life set to Michael Nyman's sensitive score, yet I appreciated the minutes to contemplate the milieu and unload some of the film's emotional baggage. Wonderland follows three working class sisters over a four-day period as each struggles to find security in her lonely world. Gina McKee, sporting an endearing croissant hairdo, plays Nadia, the most engaging of them, a mature adult stuck in the mating cycles of women ten years her junior. I must also single out glum Canadian actress Molly Parker, as 'the pregnant one,' but for her curious miscasting; the tentative mannerisms are all wrong here, and the transparent, tea-time accent doesn't help matters.
While Wonderland is hardly innovative for notoriously bleak English cinema, it does resonate with empathetic audience members, including this one. The characters (additionally, an imploding fan of "Babies" (the saddest "Pulp" song), the girls' spiteful mother, and many others--arguably too many) are all bored and dissatisfied; the always sincere Winterbottom, encouraging improvisation from his actors and documenting it all in handheld Super16, offers a gratifyingly unironic view here of common restlessness.
From acclaimed director Michael Winterbottom (Welcome To Sarajevo), comes the compelling tale of three sisters and their search for love in modern Lon...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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