The Wonder Shop of Mr. Magorium-Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (2007)

Directed by: Zach Helm | 94 minutes | comedy, family, fantasy | Actors: Ted Ludzik, Natalie Portman, Zach Mills, Dustin Hoffman, Madalena Brancatella, Paula Boudreau, Mike Realba, Steve Whitmire, Liam Powley-Webster, Marcia Bennett, Jason Bateman, Oliver Masuda, Samantha Harvey, Jesse Bostick, Isaac Durnford

Up to a certain age, children harbor the magical idea that an inanimate object, especially a toy, can take on a life of its own. The film industry likes to capitalize on such magical ideas, as Pixar/Disney did with ‘Toy Story’ (1995). With ‘Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium’, not an animated film but live action, director and scriptwriter Zach Helm tries to bring an entire toy store to life. Helm, who once worked in a toy store himself, is a new name in the film world. He wrote the well-received comedy “Stranger than Fiction” (2006), but “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium’ is his directorial debut.

Isn’t it a bit ambitious for a directorial debut to choose a story about a living toy store? Helm is lucky enough to have a hefty budget and he uses every means possible to bring the magic to life: stars Dustin Hoffman and Natalie Portman play lead roles, Roman Osin (the cinematographer of the Oscar-nominated ‘Pride & Prejudice’ 2005 ) is the director of photography, Thérèse DePrez designed the look of the sets and Oscar nominee Alexandre Desplat (for ‘The Queen’ 2006) provided the music. Everything seems to have been thought of: good actors, beautiful sets, images and music. Helm adds some exotic animals (zebras, lemurs) to this and it can hardly go wrong.

It doesn’t really go wrong either, ‘Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium’ is a nice film with, indeed, decent acting (which moves little Zach Mills in particular), beautiful piano playing and a beautiful visualization of an antique-looking but very lively toy store. The only thing missing is a strong story. The story of ‘Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium’ is initially about dealing with loss and in a broader sense the film promotes the American dogma ‘believe in yourself and everything is possible’, which expands around Christmas time to believe in miracles. However, the events that should support these two major themes are sparsely fleshed out. There is no good story structure and the voice-over with which the young Eric always tells ‘this chapter is called ..’ is therefore a futile attempt to give the film an appearance of ‘a story as from a book’.

However, that is reasoned from an adult point of view and ‘Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium’ is mainly made for children. For an age group up to about eight years old, the film is everything you could wish for: beautiful living toys with weird antics, a crazy Dustin Hoffman, a sweet Natalie Portman and above all a lot of magic. Because the film will not appeal to an older audience as, for example, Tim Burton films always manage to do, it will not become a classic, but ‘Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium’ is the ideal film to take the children to during the Christmas holidays.