I'm a sucker for tear jerkers. They're predictable, cathartic and appeal to my soft emotional underbelly. So I was expecting it when I saw "Wonder." It met all of the usual criteria; it was predictable, had heartstring tugging moments (my friend who also works with people with disabilities and I both found the dog scene, ironically, the tipping point.) It was star studded and Hollywood-y with a happy ending. But it had more, a lot more, and what it had makes it worth seeing by most anyone, particularly by typically developing kids who have siblings with different abilities or disabilities, their parents, friends, families, neighbors and yes, kids with differing abilities as well.
What was unique was its unanticipated focus on a number of the individual children in the story, both protagonist and antagonist, that revealed much more of the subtle and complex background kids in late elementary and high school endure. It's easy for adults to chalk up kids drama to "drama." But it's not drama for them, no more than our adult drama is to us. It's critical, compelling, gut wrenching and painful. "Wonder" did a superlative job in going behind the scenes of the children, highlighting the struggles children and adults of all stripes all have with loyalty, betrayal, forgiveness, ambivalence and persistence.
Siblings of kids with special needs should see it due to the compelling portrayal of the sister by Izabela Vidovic. Siblings of differently abled kids cope - they have to given the often universal demands their siblings present. But they don't have to like it and their hearts have limits. The mix of the love, resentment, anger, frustration, hopelessness and endurance of siblings of kids with disabilities was well presented and will ring true for kids who try their best to support through the challenges of their own adolescence.
Neurotypical kids who attend just about any school should see it as it presents the multitude of mixed emotions and rivalries that contribute to harsh bullying (which is actually a redundancy), whether of a child with a special need or of any kid at all. (I will say I thought one weakness of the film was its lack of mental health support at the school, but that's Tinseltown for you.) And for parents who have any discomfort with "differences" which is most all of us. The struggle of the power of the group and how peers influence one another to bully was well portrayed, reminding us that the bully may be a victim as well.
So , yes, it's tear evoking with a sugar coated ending. It has predictable parent figures representing caricatures from very good to very bad. It's Hollywood. But it's strengths greatly outweigh any weaknesses and it's appropriate for parents and kids who can cope with the realities of life in 5th grade and up. It will make for great conversation with your typically developing kids as well as with your kids with any kind of special need.
