Wonka vs Wonka and the problem with overly likable characters

I watched Timothée Chalamet’s recent turn with Willy Wonka. I liked it, but I didn’t love it. It wasn’t as good as Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka in the 1971 film or the one in Roald Dahl’s original book we read in my sixth-grade class. The reason is a mistake writers make — creating a protagonist who is too likable.

There’s a reason Wilder’s Wonka has been used in that famous sarcastic meme you see in this post. Wilder’s Wonka is not supposed to be a good guy. He’s a trickster, but with a strong hint of malevolence. We don’t know what he’s going to do next. And as unpleasant as Veruca Salt, Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregarde, and Mike Teavee are, we feel their punishments were more severe than they deserved. The heroes of the story aren’t so great either. Grandpa Joe was bedridden, but he springs to his feet as soon as Charlie gets that golden ticket? Charlie himself breaks Wonka’s rules by sipping sodas in the Fizzy Lifting Drinks room and almost gets sliced up by a ceiling exhaust fan. (And we won’t go into the uncomfortable backstory about the Oompa-Loompas.)

Those are the things that make the original book and the 1971 movie so engaging. Willy Wonka fascinates us because he’s so unpredictable, and we don’t know what to make of him. Charlie is just a kid who makes the occasional wrong choice, but he does the right…