A first look at Wonder Wheel reveals Woody Allen’s continuing obsession with romance and nostalgia.
It’s that time of year again. Woody Allen has made a habit of releasing at least one new film every year for as long as many Substream readers have been alive, so it should come as no surprise that 2017 will not be an exception. Wonder Wheel will soon move from the festival circuit to a limited release with a little help from Amazon Studios, and today we saw the film’s first trailer.
In the teaser, which you can watch at the top of this post, viewers are introduced to the bright and colorful world of 1950s Coney Island. There we meet a woman played by Kate Winslet who finds herself in the middle of two incredibly complicated situations. Not only is she becoming smitten with a young lifeguard (Justin Timberlake) who offers a sense of romance her husband can no longer provide, but she’s doing so while also helping her husband’s estranged daughter (Juno Temple) hide out from the mob. There is also the battles she faces with herself, namely what she’s doing with her life and why.
The official synopsis for Wonder Wheel reads:
Wonder Wheel tells the story of four characters whose lives intertwine amid the hustle and bustle of the Coney Island amusement park in the 1950s: Ginny (Kate Winslet), a melancholy, emotionally volatile former actress now working as a waitress in a clam house; Humpty (Jim Belushi), Ginny’s rough-hewn carousel operator husband; Mickey (Justin Timberlake), a handsome young lifeguard who dreams of becoming a playwright; and Carolina (Juno Temple), Humpty’s long-estranged daughter, who is now hiding out from gangsters at her father’s apartment.
Winslet has already started receiving Oscar buzz for her performance in this film, but from the looks of it she might not be the only one worthy of praise. We’ll find out for certain when Wonder Wheel begins its North American rollout on December 1.
