This is one of those movies in which the main character is so extreme, extremely cynical and down on life, in this case, that the story is obviously going to be about how he’ll change. Ben Singer (Matthew Broderick) is the sad sack in this case, a divorced proofreader who thinks The Man is keeping people down, and feels down about that. He ex worries that his negativity is rubbing off on their tween daughter. He has imaginary, or dreamed, conversations with The Man, ably personified by Philip Baker Hall, who explains that while everyone has bad impulses, not everyone has good ones.
Like Richard Jenkins’s character in The Visitor, Ben lives with a more carefree Senegalese, but it takes a woman—his roommate’s visiting sister (Sanaa Lathan)—to change his worldview. A directorial debut from screenwriter Josh Goldin, Wonderful World doesn’t have many sharp edges, and Ben’s facile ephiphany comes with the unnecessary suggestion that it takes belief in a kind of literal magic to be happy. But it tells a nice tale without pretense. Broderick provides a low-key performance that made Ben seem less obnoxious than he might otherwise sound. He almost made me believe that such a curmudgeon could have truly been, of all things, the former children’s singer (yes, named Singer) he is supposedly to be.
IMDB link
viewed 1/21/10 at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 1/24/10
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