WONDER MOVIE REVIEW
Stephen Chbosky's movie which is entitled WONDER, that is according to my research is New York Times bestseller is a story of a fifth grader August "Auggie" Pullman (Jacob Tremblay) who sees himself as an ordinary kid. Science is her favorite, also his favorite holiday is halloween 'cause its where he get to bond with his sister Via. He lives in upper Manhattan with his parents Isabel (Julia Roberts) and Nate (Owen Wilson), sister Olivia, AKA Via (Izabela Vidovic), and their charming dog Daisy. Let me describe Auggie to you, he was born with deformed face. He already had undergone 27 surgeries, since birth for his parents want his face to be just as the same as theirs. But then besides it all, they love him unconditionally. Because of his facial deformity, he has been home-schooled and he frequently wears an astronaut helmet to hide his face. On that year, Auggie will officially go to a regular school which is a thing that his parents debate on for like, forever. He went to school which is Breecher Prep, a private school and met some friends there. Some where bully, some turns out to be good. They meet Mr. Tushman (Mandy Patinkin), the school's director. He introduces Auggie to the three kids who will be giving him a tour - Jack Will (Noah Jupe), Julian (Bryce Gheisar), and Charlotte (Elle McKinnon). The kids bring Auggie to their classes, with Charlotte rambling on about her various acting gigs. Julian teases Auggie, but Jack and Charlotte are nicer to him. The whole family went to take Auggie to school during his first day. His mom worries, other kids will be mean to him. And so moving on, Auggie enters his first class with Mr. Browne (Daveed Diggs) as his teacher. Jack, Julian, and Charlotte are all his classmates too. After Auggie is called on to speak and mentions his love for the Star Wars, but then Julian starts calling him Darth Sidious. Throughout the rest of the day, other children at the school stares weirdly at him and avoid making contact with him. At the end of the day, Isabel picks Auggie up, and he immediately puts on his astronaut helmet. He runs to his room crying. Isabel tries to comfort and encourage him to not let what the other kids say bother him. Lets go to Auggie's sister Via's point of view. She is a selfless sister to Auggie that she keeps her own emotional needs just for her parents to be less loaded with problems knowing the condition of her brother Auggie. She loves him and is also protective over him. Via has a bestfriend Miranda, that turned out to have other friends already on the first day of school when they'd bumped into each other and seems like she doesn't want to be friends with Via anymore she kept on rejecting Via. Miranda has pink highlights too, its like a totally new Miranda for Via. Later that day, Via meets Justin (Nadji Jeter), who convinces her to try out for the drama club and their upcoming production of "Our Town". After how many days, she decided to sign up. At school Jack quickly approach Auggie, and so they became friends at school given that Jack Will is the only person Auggie is friends with at school. On Halloween, their mom wants via to be at home to do some bonding. On the other hand Auggie goes to school and for halloween he wears Ghostface (from "Scream") instead of his original planned Boba Fett costume because Daisy threw up on it. Auggie loves halloween because he gets to wear a mask that allows him not to show his face and not feel like a freak which everyone calls him. Moving on he entered the classroom and saw Julian talking to his friend with a Darth Sidious costume mocking him. That time he also overheard Jack Will saying that he would most likely kill himself if he looked like Auggie. He claimed to be sick so that his mom will pick him up at school. He left school picked up by his mom and immediately ran into his room after they arrived at home. Via was worried and so he ran immediately after Auggie to his room. He tells her what he heard Jack say. Although he wants to quit school, Via convinces him he shouldn't. Their lovely dog tends to get more sick and so they took her to the vet. Later that night they went home with just the collar of Daisy. The family misses their dog so much everytime. At Via's school, she gets the role of understudy for the character of Emily, while Miranda earns that part. Outside of school, she starts to date Justin. Jack goes up to Summer and asks her why Auggie stopped talking to him. She only tells him "Ghostface". It takes him a while to piece it together, but he realizes he saw Auggie overhearing what he said about him on Halloween. During science class, the teacher pairs Jack and Auggie together since they are table buddies, but Julian and their friend Amos (Ty Consiglio) had planned to work with Jack. Jack chooses to stay with Auggie. After class Julian and Jack had a fight because Julian called Jack a freak. But then Jack never told Mr. Tushman what Julian said so that the story just ends up there. Julian later starts to leave cruel notes on Auggie's desk and locker. They put a photo-shopped picture of the class without Auggie and a note on the back that says "Do everyone a favor and die!" Tushman calls Julian's parents in to discuss the bullying. His parents don't seem to care for what he's done and think it's more of a problem that Auggie was admitted, with Julian's mom claiming that he's had nightmares because of him and that the other kids are too young to deal with this sort of thing. When Tushman doesn't side with them, Julian's parents decide to pull him out of school when the year is up. He becomes distraught because it would mean leaving his friends. Julian apologizes to Tushman for what he's done. The whole family of Auggie went to Via's school for the play aforementioned. While getting ready, Miranda realized that nobody would be there to watch her as the star of the show and so she faked to be sick and she let Via play the role of hers at the play. Via performed and she did a very great job. For that, her whole family is so proud of her. A few months near the end of the year, Auggie's class goes on a nature trip near. During the trip, while the class is watching "The Wizard of Oz", Auggie and Jack sneak out to have fun elsewhere near their place. They are then harassed by three seventh graders who mock Auggie for his look. They start to physically harass the boys until Amos and two other boys show up to defend Auggie and Jack. But then, they knocked the leader of the seventh graders down and then ran after it. Afterwards, all the boys stopped by the lake to watch the sunset and they realized they are lucky they have each other as friends. The end of the school year now arrived, it is now Auggie's graduation day. During so, Tushman goes up to present the Henry Ward Beecher Medal to an exceptional student whose character was demonstrated through their schoolwork and relationships with others. The award surprisingly goes to Auggie. Auggie goes up the stage to recejve the award. His family and friends are so proud of him. Actually all the people in the hall, gave Auggie a standing ovation. The ending was perfect.
This movie is a bomb!It gave me lessons in life that'll sure remain in my heart forever.
There are 3 lessons in life that I learned in this movie that I want to share with you. First, no matter how big the rocks life throw at us, catch and smash it with your hopes and you will conquer it at the end of the day. Hope is the only thing we can hold onto. Our hopes may be shakened at times like what happened in the mother of Auggie. As a mother, she wont lose hope in saving the life of her son. She even took the risk of letting Auggie go to a normal school considering his condition with the hope of Auggie having social interaction with people and having actual friends that he can lean to and enjoy life with. Second, a genuine friendship is forgiving and unconditional. As I observe in the movie, the friendship Miranda and Olivia, Auggie and Jack have is something to be treasured forever. But then this sudden change of heart of Miranda hits Olivia and the relationship that they have. Also the backstabbing of Jack to Auggie affected him so much that he generalized everyone in his school to be unkind and unseemly to people with his condition. This leads me to the third lesson that I learned in this movie, nobody is perfect. Eveybody makes mistakes not once, twice but possibly everyday. As we make mistakes, we should learn from it to, dont do it again and do better, or best rather. People hurt us, but we learn to forgive just as Jesus forgive us, and even save us.
I wanna share with you the most powerful part of the movie for me.
The most striking part of the movie for me is the last part. That is where Auggie was recognized by the whole school for being such a good model, a friend, a son, a sibling. Auggie was truly an inspiration for all especially for those children who are bullies and bad. That wasthe part that like pinched my heart and make my eyes tear. Seeing how happy a child innocent and brave like him stand out and be better than most of the called normal children out there. Its definitely worth the time and it reminded me of a friend who is underestimated and bullied, now he is now part of the honor roll in their school proving to everyone he can do it even in his condition.
Guess who is my favorite character in the movie....
My favorite character in the movie wasn't Auggie though. It is his sister, Olivia or via, because I see myself in her character. She embodies the attitude of a teenager whom I can say, I am now. She has been generous enough to allow her brother to be the center of the family’s attention at the expense of her own emotional need. Like her, I tend to be selfless when it comes to family matters, I am an only child but I have younger cousins, nephews and nieces whom I can call much more needy of our family's attention. Via's character just prove to us that a sister's genuine love is helpful in a family setting like theirs whuch is true to some of my family conditions too.
If I were to ask Via, I would ask if how does she do it.
How does she became strong allowing her family to be centered at Auggie's life knowing that she still exist in their life.
