Among the snoots, the snobs, the erudite Ivory Tower dwellers (Hi! We’re one of them!), a new film from Todd Haynes is our forthcoming Marvel or “Star Wars” movie. So get ready to squee, rabid cinephiles, because the trailer for “Wonderstruck” — the filmmaker’s follow-up to “Carol,” which was, I dunno, our equivalent of “Logan,” I guess — is live.
Last time we saw him, Haynes played things kind of straight, so to speak. “Carol” told a story from start to end, minus a little flashfoward to the end at the beginning before diving into an epic flashback. “Wonderstruck,” based on a bestseller we never heard of until Haynes announced he was adapting it, returns the director to playful multiple-storylines-that-sort-of-connect-if-not-literally mode. (See: “Poison” and especially “I’m Not There,” as well as the timeline-jumping “Velvet Goldmine.”)
In one story, set in 1977, Oakes Fegley, the scruffy cutie from “Pete’s Dragon,” plays a young boy who runs away to New York. Meanwhile, in 1927 (filmed in crisp black-and-white), Millicent Simmonds plays a young deaf girl who also runs away from home, in order to find her idol (Julianne Moore). Moore — a Haynes regular going all the way back to the sinister, terrifying “Safe” — also plays Simmonds’ character when she’s older, which we’re going to guess speaks to how we all wish we could literally become our idols when we grow up.
The two timelines mix up until they smash together, in some supernatural fashion that both astonished and bewildered those who saw it at Cannes this year. Some were slightly taken aback that Haynes — whose NC-17-rated “Poison” ruffled the feathers of no less than mighty homophobe Jesse Helms, who fomented a pre-Internet outrage campaign upon learning it had been partially funded by the NEA — had gone gooey and PG. But we trust Haynes. We’d follow him anywhere. And we’re still smarting from that inexplicable “Carol” snub at the Oscars two years back.
“Wonderstuck” arrives Oct. 20. Watch the trailer below, and delight that it features “Space Oddity” — which we’re going to assume is a reference to how David Bowie denied Haynes the right to use his music in “Velvet Goldmine,” which suggested he banged either Lou Reed or Iggy Pop or both.
