New York Film Fest hopes audiences will be ‘Wonderstruck’
Todd Haynes, director of the acclaimed Cate Blanchett film Carol, will showcase his new film Wonderstruck at the 55th New York Film Festival.
Adapted from Brian Selznick’s novel of the same name, the story is split across two time periods: 1927 and 1977. Ben, a deaf orphan, goes in search of his father and winds up in New York’s Natural History Museum. Fifty years earlier, another deaf child, Rose, makes the same journey to find her actress mother. Julianne Moore plays both Rose’s mother as well as older Rose, whose path crosses Ben’s in 1977. Wonderstruck is described as a mysterious “love letter to a bygone era of New York” and unfolds largely without dialogue.
“Todd Haynes and Brian Selznick have pulled off something truly remarkable here”, said NYFF Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones. “It’s a powerful evocation of childhood, with all of its mysteries and terrors and flights of imagination and longings; richly textured re-creations of Manhattan in the ’20s and the ’70s; and a magical and intricately plotted quest story that builds to a beautiful climax. Wonderstruck is fun and emotionally potent – and it’s a great New York movie”.
Plot and Cast Details
Oakes Fegley plays Ben and Millicent Simmonds plays young Rose. Brian Selznick wrote the screenplay adapting his own novel. The dual timelines remain intact, with the 1927 and 1977 threads converging at the American Museum of Natural History. The script preserves Selznick’s emphasis on visual storytelling and the absence of spoken dialogue for much of the running time.
NYFF Context and Quotes
The film screened October 7, 2017 at NYFF. It had already premiered at Cannes in May 2017, giving Haynes and the cast an earlier international showcase before the Lincoln Center engagement. Kent Jones’s remarks on the film’s emotional and visual ambitions stayed consistent with the festival’s positioning of the title as its centerpiece.
Critical Reception and Awards Season
Reviews were mixed. Many critics praised the film’s visual design, its inventive use of silence, and the careful recreation of two distinct New York eras. Others found the emotional distance between characters harder to bridge once the narrative threads joined. Despite the pre-release awards positioning, Wonderstruck received no major Oscar nominations. The film later moved to streaming platforms after its limited theatrical run.
Representation of Deaf Characters and Casting
Millicent Simmonds, a deaf actress, was cast as young Rose following a targeted search. The production placed several deaf performers in roles that might otherwise have gone to hearing actors. Julianne Moore portrayed the adult deaf character Rose, continuing the film’s commitment to authentic representation across both timelines.
Box Office Performance and Distribution
Worldwide gross reached roughly $3.3 million. Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions handled distribution. The release stayed limited in theaters before moving quickly to home viewing, a pattern consistent with specialty titles that year.
Last Flag Flying NYFF Outcome
Richard Linklater’s Last Flag Flying opened the 55th NYFF on September 29, 2017. The film received a wider theatrical release in November. Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, and Laurence Fishburne led the cast, extending the story of the three Navy veterans from the 1973 original.
The two films together gave the festival a clear through-line: one an almost-silent period mystery rooted in childhood longing, the other a road-trip comedy about adult reckoning. Both titles now sit as period markers for what NYFF chose to spotlight that fall, and both have settled into quieter streaming rotations since their festival debuts.
