Wonderland Movie Review

Wonderland was a curious choice for 1989's closing night at San Francisco's Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, an event which professes to celebrate positive gay images on film. Philip Saville's film is saturated with so many homophobic messages: If you're young, nice, and gay, prepare to die. If you're a thief, a liar, and a gay basher, you deserve to survive. Moreover, Wonderland exploits overly obvious gay symbols for ruthless plot advances which don't always make sense. The appealing Emile Charles plays Eddie, the film's most innocent character. Kind to his mother, who cherishes her blurry 1960s fantasy of ALMOST being cast in a bit role in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Eddie is addicted to Marilyn Monroe movies and is thrilled when he meets the famous opera star Vincent at a private buffet he crashes with his best friend Michael (played by Tony Forsyth). Earlier in the evening Eddie and Michael were the reluctant witnesses to a gangland slaying in a gay bar and their encounter with Vincent provides a temporary escape from the mob's hitman, Echo (Bruce Payne.) Eddie and Michael quickly accept an invitation to join Vincent and his manager Eve for a holiday in Brighton. Up to this point, the movie has been a colorful, mostly inoffensive series of character vignettes. The rest of the movie is a mess. It's hard to decide who gets trashed more in Wonderland’s final reels, gays or dolphins. Even a conscienceless louse like Michael would not take all night to notice a major detail like a knife wound sustained by his best friend. And, not that it would matter to screenwriter Frank Clarke, but dolphins do not attack people, therefore the melodramatic ending is a complete shuck. “What a piece of crap,” I overheard the man in back of me mutter as he left the theatre before the closing credits rolled onscreen. Even a ticket taker was knocking the film to the some of the sell-out festival crowd as they entered the theatre. There might be worse movies to see on your hard-earned entertainment budget, but there are plenty of better ones. AKA: The Fruit Machine.

1988 103m/C GB Emile Charles, Tony Forsyth, Robert Stephens, Clare Higgins, Bruce Payne, Robbie Coltrane; D: Philip Saville; W: Frank Clarke; C: Dick Pope; M: Hans Zimmer. VHS, LV