Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium

It isn’t easy being the little sister. It really isn’t. Not being quite ready for the stuff the older kids are watching, but trying to fake it because you so desperately want to grow up, being scared – really scared – by movies but sitting through them anyway because they’re supposed to be “family films”, it’s just hard. So sometimes, when your big brother is off at swim practice where he can’t roll his adolescent eyes at your young choices, you get to go see a real “family film” with your mom and dad. Those times are pretty golden. When you get to see Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium they shine even a little brighter.

Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium is that wonder of all wonders – a G rated movie that doesn’t star Winnie the Pooh. It has real life people and a real story without a sequel number behind it. It has real actors that don’t currently star on any Disney Channel TV show and it doesn’t have even a little bit of sexual innuendo in it – not even a little! Those things alone make it a Hollywood miracle – as if someone waved a magic wand and created a movie with their way-back machine that might appeal to an actual child. Maybe it was Mr. Magorium himself that performed this remarkable feat….

Mr. Magorium (Dustin Hoffman), you see, is quite a magical man. And his store is quite a magical place, if you’re so inclined to see it. Actually, it’s nearly impossible not to see it – there’s magic bursting from the seams in this place! Magical rooms and doors and toys and games and just about everything. Even better, Mr. Magorium lets the kids come in and play with all of it. His store manager, Molly Mahoney (Natalie Portman), helps him juggle this barely controlled chaos – she understands Magorium and the Emporium. She’s also a virtuoso pianist who has slowly lost faith in her ability to live up to the potential she showed as a child. Into the picture come an uptight accountant (Jason Bateman) tasked with the monumental job of putting over a century’s worth of books in order and a boy (Zach Mills) who loves the Emporium but has a great deal of difficulty finding even one friend outside this protected space.

So far this sounds kind of typical – sort of Willy Wonka meets every other family movie ever made. And I have to admit, there’s a lot of predictability in here. The themes of believing in yourself and making your own dreams a reality are pretty heavy handed and laid out on a silver platter in case you missed them in every frame of the film. But little sisters still need things spelled out. When done well, there’s nothing wrong with a character laying his lesson on the table so his small audience doesn’t miss it. And it’s all done well here, primarily due to the talents of Dustin Hoffman and Natalie Portman.

Dustin Hoffman revels in his role as Mr. Magorium. From his buck teeth and his lisp to his very vivid (and not at all hidden) inner child to his never-ending eccentricities, Hoffman has a blast with this character. He never lets his adulthood get in the way of his fun – exactly as it should be. He’s quite over the top in many ways, but has a gentle charm that accompanies that manic energy and makes it all bearable.

Natalie Portman is just as adorable as ever as Mahoney. She loves Magorium, but feels stuck in a rut as the child prodigy who never made good. Her big brown eyes and pixie haircut just underscore her youth and vulnerability. She’s cool and confident in so many ways, but insecure and doubting in many others. While the boy Eric and Magorium fully grasp and embrace the Emporium, Mahoney sees herself outside its magic. Portman does sweet and vulnerable and self-doubting better than anybody and she pours it on here.

The rest of the cast (that’s really just Jason Batemen and Zach Mills) are absolutely respectable. Bateman fills out his stuffy businessman’s suit well and Mills is cute and precocious in all the right places. Neither one of them owns their role like Hoffman or Portman, but both are well cast and perform admirably.

Major honors have to go to the visual effects team that put together the Emporium itself. It’s a swirling, whirling mass of color and energy. These amazing visuals are made even more fun when the store is given a personality of its own. The store is a child and sometimes behaves like one – and it wears its feelings on its sleeve (or in this case its walls) just like a child. Very cute and clever.

Mr. Magoruim’s Wonder Emporium isn’t the best movie ever – it is predictable and its characters are over the top. But it has such a nostalgic feel that I really enjoyed it, as did my daughter and even her dad. It’s been a long time since I saw a real family movie that didn’t seem to feel as though it had to include veiled sexual references or gross-out toilet humor to entertain its audience. This is a movie about innocence, and it’s perfect for kids who haven’t yet lost that quality and their parents who want them to hold onto it just a little longer. Tomorrow she can go back to all the teen angst and cartoon idiocy that passes for children’s entertainment, but for today she gets a chance to revel in the magical world of Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. That alone is worth the price of admission.