Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium
Zach Helm (writer of the delightful Stranger Than Fiction) writes and directs this film, one that is, by discussions I have had, either going to be a massive classic or vanish into obscurity. From these two works of Helms, it is clear that he loves the notion of inanimate objects being more in tune with us than would mundanely be thought. I love this notion, and am always willing to run with it. In exploiting this plot device, what was a trivial hiccup in Stranger than Fiction is here a massive lurch of a misstep. In Fiction, Will Ferrell’s watch keeps an eye on him, interposing its will subtly to make a change. We were asked to buy this with little pre-amble, but we knew the narrator was also creating the conceit at the same time. In Magorium, the titular toy store itself is conscious, magical, a wonder. It is a lovely idea, going beyond the Wonka-tastical into full on Nutcracker Suite/Toy Story levels of inanimation.
How is this a misstep? It sounds divine! How could I have pooped myself so brazenly over Enchanted yet still be such a Scrooge about Magorium? I’ll use other movies as examples. In either version of Roald Dahl’s story of Charlie and Wonka, we hear about the wonders, the specialness, the deep international love of the factory before we see a single doorknob. When Dorothy arrives in Oz, she discovers its wonders gradually, exploring its magic and falling in love as she goes. Ditto for Harry Potter as he finds his true identity at Hogwarts. With this film, we are placed inside the store and informed that we are meant to have already fallen deeply in serious love with it with no endowment, no exploration, no nothing, just “this is a store people love. Next!” We have to instantly invest in its extraordinary specialness and care about its survival (and that of Mr. Magorium himself) without having a reason to.
As a result, I was emotionally divested until the unnaturally luminous and magical Natalie Portman’s acting forced me to care (it was her convincing someone else to care, which should not have included me). Ok actually it was the sock monkey that really did it. Jason Bateman is the grey-suited voice of rationality who we are meant to cheerlead over to our side, but who instead provides most of the comic relief almost by accident.
All that said, the movie knows how to put together a charming visual. If it were a picture book (with a proper exposition and the warm voice of someone like Emma Thompson reading it), it would be an instant classic, visually. The score is really pretty, and keeps the overt musical manipulation to a minimum. The set is a propmaster’s dream, and pays for itself with a zillion opportunities for product placement. Except for the unlikely, ungovernable retail chaos that reigns here (I suppose its “magical charm”), the Emporium does look like a great place to while away a rainy Saturday. It took the whole movie to make me care about it, even with my own romantic inclinations.
Dustin Hoffman as the titular profession is pushing the whimsical affectations a bit hard but it’s equally hard not to care about how much HE cares. He gets cuter and sweeter as the movie progresses, but his character falls victim to the same “thrown into the middle” as the rest of the film. As an adult girl who has secretly apologized to stuffed animals as she donates them to charity (and, ahem, not that long ago), I felt that the movie squandered a million chances to truly be magical by trying so hard to magic up the kids of today.
Narrator Eric (Zach Mills, kind of off-putting as an actor as his character is meant to be) is meant to be the younger generation misfit, but instead he gets misused as an engine of unification with the store. (I also had a prodigious hat collection; why did this movie miss the giant red target on my chest?)
Many people old and young have told me they really liked it, so go for the score and sets, and stay for when it finally grabs you, but be prepared for an uphill climb to the transcendence Helm intended.
MPAA Rating G
Release date 11/16/07
Time in minutes 94
Director Zach Helm
Studio 20th Century Fox
