Wonderstruck

Wonderstruck is a drama directed by Todd Haynes (Carol). The film is based on the book of the same name by Brian Selznick, who also wrote the screenplay. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and stars Oakes Fegley, Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams, and Millicent Simmonds.

In director Todd Haynes’ WONDERSTRUCK, Ben and Rose are children from two different eras who secretly wish their lives were different. Ben longs for the father he has never known, while Rose dreams of a mysterious actress whose life she chronicles in a scrapbook. When Ben discovers a puzzling clue in his home and Rose reads an enticing headline in the newspaper, both children set out on quests that unfold with mesmerizing symmetry.

“The book works at the deepest level,” explains Haynes, “evoking the imagination and allowing spaces to fill in the gaps yourself, and you take possession of it and it’s your own. The fact that it created a dialogue between these two periods of time, but having the continuity of New York fifty years changed—from the 1920s story to the 1970s story —just begged to be turned into the language of cinema.”

Wonderstruck is rated PG.