REVIEW. WONKA: "The Importance of Being Willy."

About thirty minutes into Wonka, Paul King's prequel to 1971's Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and based on a character from the late Roald Dahl's 1964 book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, young Willy (Timothée Chalamet) tells a disillusioned urchin named Noodle (newcomer Calah Lane) that his dream of opening the best chocolate shop in the world will be "a ray of hope beyond the shadow of despair." Lofty ambition, for sure, but Willy is nothing if not determined and earnest.

Lofty is also the name of an Oompa Loompa, played with devlish insoucience by Hugh Grant, but we'll get to him later.

There have been many cinematic iterations of Dahl's work, and he was often outspoken about his disdain for the Hollywood-ization of his novels, especially the 1971 Wonka classic starring Gene Wilder. So it would be interesting to know what Dahl would think of King's vision of a young Wonka whose story, much like Dahl's adolescent themes, champions the kindhearted and is filled with a kind of altriusm and desire to help those in trouble.

The plot is fairly straightforward: We meet Willy enthusiastically forging his dream of owning a chocolate shop after spending seven years aboard a ship, earning his keep and his freedom. Disembarking the ship to make his way in an unidentified European city (maybe Paris?), Willy finds his money (a dozen sovereigns) doesn't go very far and, after making a deal for a night's stay at a dubious flop house (he's illiterate and can't read the fine print), attempts to peddle his chocolate the next day at the town sqaure.

And peddle he does: When people taste his chocolates, the entire screen (I saw it in IMAX) is alive with color, ballons swirling, people literally floating on air. Willy's success is interrupted by a trio of Chocolate Cartel members (yes, you read that correctly) who have secured a monopoly on chocolate and the community. Though Willy makes more than his share of sovereigns introducing his chocolate, the Chief-of-Police (Keegan-Michael Key) informs him he can't "sell" in the town square - he must own a chocolate shop - and confiscates his earnings. Of course, the Chief is in cohoots with the Cartel.

Unable to pay for his lodging, Willy is forced into servitude in the hotel's laundrette, where he meets a coterie of colleagues similarly paying off their unanticipated debt to the unyielding Mrs. Scrubitt (a thoroughly repulsive Olivia Colman - but in a good way - whose character seems to be an amalgam of Fagin, Mme Defarge and Victory Hugo's Mme Thénardiers). Undaunted, Willy is determined to free them all and own his chocolate shop.

The rest of the movie is a series of fairly conventional twists and turns that include a crooked priest, a dignified funeral gone awry, a giraffe, true love, and the return of an Oompa Loompa (but we'll get to him later), as Willy works to make his dreams come true.

So is Willy worth its weight in bonbons?

That probably depends on your tolerance for sentiment served with a dose of Truvia (it's the 21st century, folks, no saccharine reference needed). Dahl's children's books are known for their lack of sentimentality, but King infuses his story (co-written with Simon Farnaby) with moments of tenderness and notalgia. Noodle, the orphan who becomes Willy's most trusted accomplice in their escape from the laundrette, longs to find her real parents. Willy, whose mother died when he was a boy, seeks to recapture the feeling (the love) he had when they were together. He hopes his candy will transport him back to his childhood and the warm memories of his mother (a radiant Sally Hawkins who appears in flashbacks).

King and Farnaby make sure that Dalh's requesite bad guys are omnipresent: adults, specifically, greedy, ruthless, dishonest and self-centered bastards who care little for others and only about themselves. The numerous villains here are mostly one-dimensional, establishing clearly - and somewhat simplistically - the lines between good and evil. The set design seems like something straight out of a Dickens' novel: dark, bleak empty streets that only come to life and color when Willy's chocolate is consumed. Chalamet fits right into this world, and it's no surprise that director King would only consider him for the role. Chalamet's face is pure Dickensian and his plight to overcome poverty and overwhelming odds against him make him a sort of erstwhile Pip with a twist of Oliver. Chalamet isn't a singer per se, and he really can't "dance," but there is a charming sort of tremor in his voice and an awkwardness in his moves that make his Willy perfect.

He's surrounded by a great cast, too. Newcomer Calah Lane is delightfully pragmatic, even while hiding personal despair. She balances Willy's dreaminess with praticality, even questions his ongoing references to the Oopma Loomp who is stalking him and stealing from him. More on that Oopma Loompa coming up shortly.

The aforementioned Colman, Hawkins and Key are joined by Rowan Atkinson as a cagey priest (someone ought to write a paper on Atkinson's acument mocking the clergy), and, of course Hugh Grant, whose scene-stealing turn as Oompa Loompa Lofty (real name is Shorty Pants, but he's been overcompensating for low self esteem), is worth the price of admission. Known for his biting wit and curmudgeonly persona, Grant is brilliantly cast (and appropriately downsized) as Willy's one-time nemisis who becomes a reclutant supporter. His screen time is limited, but his presence is what movie cameos are all about. Stay around for the credits to see a special encore.

As a musical, Wonka is pleasant enough. The songs are good and well-integrated into the story: Chalamet's opening number, "Hatful of Dreams," plays like a Barbra Streisand show-stopper reminiscent of Funny Girl's "Don't Rain on My Parade" as the camera follows him on his hopeful journey. "Scrub Scrubb," a kind of Gilbert and Sullivan "patter" song and, arguably the best musical composition, articulates the plight of Willy & Company as Mrs. Scrubitt's indentured servants. The rest of the songs are okay, but not memorable. I left the theater humming the one song King includes from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: "Pure Imagination."

Written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, "Pure Imagination" is a beautifully layered melody with whimsical lyrics. The first three notes of that song (if you know it, it's already in your head), are played by a single piano as Wonka begins and are played throughout the movie, teasing you until Willy finally sings it as the culmination to his and Noodle's respective stories. Lyrics were adjusted to reflect some of the bittersweet elements that fill the narrative. This movie had me at "hello." As soon as I heard the single notes that signal, "Come with me," I was in.

In the end, I was happy to spend an afternoon in Willy's World, though I'm not sure this is a film kids will like or appreciate. Parts of it are a bit dark, there's not enough video game action, and Willy's chocolate - though made with "silver linings and a Russian clown's tears" - seems to have more psychedelic qualities than a sugar rush might yield. Willy might be selling candy, but he's also hawking hope and all the ways that people might find it. The "Candy Man," indeed.

After all, as Willy's mother tells him (in a note he reads when his chocolate shop finally opens), "It's not the chocolate you make that matters. It's the people you share it with." True enough. See? I told you. Wonka is a delightful confection, a wistful revelry. It's....well, you know....sweet.

NOTE TO HOLLYWOOD EXECS: Let Wonka rest on its own. No need to create a franchise, develop a transition between this story and Willy's later life, no reason to turn it into a Broadway musical. Just let it be.