Wonderland (1997) User Reviews

Charming, but ruthless

[venusasaboy · 8/10 · 15 July 2000]

I loved this documentary, but at times it put Levittown's residents on such display that it began to seem more like a pseudo-documentary (a la "Waiting For Guffman"). You will definitely ask yourself "where do they find these people?"

Overall, the subjects are charming, and the town and its residents are beautifully and often ingeniously shown

Love it or Levitt.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 21 August 2022]

"It's like "I Love Lucy" without the accents and without the humor." Yep, definitely the type of town that young gay people rush out of and rarely visit once they've graduated from high school. This is the type of film that you feel guilty for laughing out but can't help it. Levittown New York was created at the end of World War II for returning best to settled into, so 50 years after that, they were all grandparents and seemingly out of touch with the times. But everybody has a story to tell, and here they do tell it, like it or not.

If I didn't research this film, I'd swear it was a parody, but these people are far too real and honest to be phonies. Everybody that they show that has survived from the 40's to the 1990's in this town has their own personality, eccentricities and weird habits, and it's obvious that they pretty much know all of the secrets of everybody on their block, especially since everybody was placed alphabetically by last name.

It's obviously a beautiful town to be raised in, but as time change and young people get older, it's also obviously colorless and "by the book" where no one of any other group is welcome, and all those other groups probably would not want to live there. This documentary just allows the camera to roll, let these longtime residents do the talking, some doing it far too much and just becoming aggressive to hear their own voice. In a sense, they've created their own prison, one where the bars are on the brain, not on the doors. Amusing, but not a place I'm putting on my "got to visit" list.

Interesting but a wee bit condescending.

[Janushka · 8/10 · 20 November 1998]

This is a fascinating documentary about Levittown, (or Levittowns-there are several), one of the first and largest postwar housing developments, the original located on Long Island. While watching the film you can see the director's shift from a historical/sociological perspective to a humorous and at times almost mean-spirited look at the lives of the people who still reside in the decaying community. There are interviews with famous ex-residents as well as almost painful revelations by some of the oh-so colorful inhabitants. Most people will have a new-found appreciation for their hometowns and also, hopefully, their present accommodations after seeing this.

Superb and a must-see...

[pauljoyner · 10/10 · 30 November 1999]

A masterpiece documentary, insofar as both the quality of selected people representing the cross section, and as a lesson in the highest art-form of editing. It is a bitter disappointment to me that the VHS is unavailable for purchase....

Funny Documentary!

[HulaHead · 10/10 · 14 January 2002]

Wonderland is a humorous look about the planned community of Levittown on Long Island, NY. Along with some brilliant historical footage, the film consists mainly of interviews with some of the town's kookier but endearingly genuine residents. The movie is sort of like Michael Moore's "Roger and Me" [about the town of Flint, MI] but without a cornball premise and without a self-absorbed director/narrator/"star". In fact, the best thing about this film is that talented director John O'Hagan stays completely out of it, letting his subjects tell the story. (The bartender who sings the national anthem is the funniest unstaged bit of film I've seen in years.) Someone made the comment that the film is mean-spirited but I don't think so. Yes, the people are often unintentionally hilarious... but no one forced them to do this movie. On the contrary, they seem to crave the attention. Mean-spirited is chasing someone around with a camera against their will, or being entertained by such.

An Entertaining Microcosm of White America

[Zen Bones · 6 June 2003]

I think this is a delightful documentary that brings together all of the elements of the best and worst of small town communities, in this case, Levittown, U.S.A. Like many of Errol Morris' documentaries, this film focuses on the eccentricities of `normal' people to the point where that very phrase `normal' becomes meaningless. There's no such thing as normal! I suppose different people will view some of the people in this film negatively, but that is where the viewers are coming from, not the filmmakers. It's all a matter of personal perception. It takes all kinds to make a world, and I personally felt this film celebrated that, whether I agreed with the points of views of the people who were featured, or related to any of their `eccentricities'. To me, some people's lives seemed a bit bland, but then I remembered that prior to the war, many of them lived in big cities with sub-standard housing and they had none of the creature comforts that we all take for granted today. Still, I've always wondered why the communities that display the highest percentage of American flags are segregated communities. Is that really the American dream for so many people? Someone in this documentary mentioned that there were Asians in Levittown but I didn't see any in this film. Nor was there any mention of the fact that there were/are no African-Americans, Hispanics, Gay people or God forbid (!) Arab-Americans in Levittown, although it's obvious to anyone with eyes. What any segregated (intentional or otherwise) community produces is a community that is pretty limited. But that is America, like it or not. Most people don't know or even want to know what lies beyond the confines of their community. America is one big country filled with various small town mentalities. I don't think that's entirely a bad thing. Small towns are often great. I live in a big city where people rarely live in one place more than two or three years and almost never get to know their neighbours, much less ever become close friends with them. People in small towns are generally kinder to their neighbours since they know that they'll be seeing a lot of them over the years. And the feeling of a community is a wonderful thing. But this documentary does show in parts how living in a generic society with one common but very limited experience of the world can be quite suffocating, mentally and emotionally. Multiply that by thousands of communities across the country and one can see where it can even be a dangerous thing. The best thing about this film is that it shows that it is our eccentricities, hobbies and even occasional delusions that keep us healthy. It illustrates how this country is strong not because of how generic or patriotic it is, but because of the warmth and imagination of its people. What's wrong with someone who collects kitschy illustrated plates, or fancies that their house is haunted? I can judge for myself that it's not anything I can relate to, but who am I to judge others? It's documentaries like this that can really make us see ourselves much better in how we look at and judge others. To me, an ideal community (and what this wonderful melting pot of a country we live in is all about) would be Levittown with people of all races and walks of life living together peacefully. Add a few nice restaurants, a great museum, a few terrific cinemas, DVD stores, and bookstores, and that would be paradise to me. In the meantime, I can appreciate the rich experience this film gave me in broadening my view of America.

I still think about this film months later

[Paul-147 · 9/10 · 23 November 1998]

This is my personal favorite film of the year. I was expecting more of a criticism of the town, but the film is really just a set of portraits of some eccentric residents of the town. The film is a bit of a ready-made - these characters are absolute gems. The film-making is also clever - the portrayals are cleverly interwoven so that the personalities unfold in surprising ways as the film goes on. The film was all I wanted to talk about for about a week after I saw it and I really wish I could see it again.

This is the worst piece of film I've ever seen

[Beckett-5 · 1/10 · 30 March 2000]

This is the worst piece of film I've ever seen. It is nothing more than a hack job of levittown. I grew up in Levittown, spent the better part of my life there and I go back to visit my family and friends as often as I can. Of those people that I know and love, and even those that I hate, not a single one of them is represented in this mockumentary. Not everyone in Levittown believes there are ghosts that come into their house to drink their juice or goes around having orgies. Not every child who grows up there turns into a delinquent or spends their life lamenting the fact that they grew up in Levittown. This pathetic excuse for a documentary does nothing to actually document Levittown as it is or as it was. It's no better or worse then anywhere else, but to watch this film, you would think it was an insane asylum. To call this film a documentary is a disservice to the genre and to the town.

Full of Wonder :)

[haunted_lady · 9/10 · 22 May 2010]

*spoiler alert* This is a gem of a little film. Offbeat and really unpredictable it is a must see for you indie film lovers. I sadly cannot seem to get it on Netflix. It contains slice of life interviews with the people who inhabit the first "ticky tacky houses" ( housing development) in New Jersey the people are quite interesting as well as a few famous ones who lived in this subdivision at one point. I have never forgotten this film and I have watched so many do your best to find it it will stick with you :)

The character who keeps finding pennies appearing in her home is the one who haunts me most. They say this is a mockumentary but I don't know I don't think it was these people were not being spoofed.

Levittown a hick town? Not!

[alomba1328 · 17 November 2004]

Re: Zen Bones' commentary about Levittown being a "segregated" community with "no blacks, Asians, gays, Hispanics or Arabs" living in it:

While Levittown was initially conceived as a segregated development, much has changed in fifty years. This town is now a culturally diverse community. Many Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians, and Arabs make their home here (visit one of Levittown's three high schools and see for yourself.) It is also important to note that this "isolated, limited, small town community" is 20 minutes from the New York City line and 40 minutes from Manhattan. There are four large universities within a 10 mile radius, one of which boasts a major metropolitan law school. It is five minutes from Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, which is the Long Island equivalent to Madison Square Garden. It is a shame that the film chose to portray Levittown as a culturally dead hick town that has never heard of the civil rights movement.

cant tell if its mean or not

[fliphop · 11 January 2000]

he goes around this womans house .. she obviously has some kinda mental problem and he edits it to make fun of her "i dont drop knives" (cut to her dropping a knife) .. cold man, real cold. another deal is the whole VFW thing.. theres a reason those people act like they do.. its because they saw their friends bodies ripped apart by explosions and bullets in some far off place theyd never heard of..... they heard them scream while their blood ran cold.. youd probably develop a few rituals if it happened to you.. it seems like this movie is just about crap that maybe looks funny from outside, fine for a laugh, but...where are the deeper stories behind these people.. like Chinua Achebe might say.. despair and hopelessness comes from being cut off from who you are.. the why and the how of your past.. so.. what does this movie give the children of levittown? "i come from a long line of elvis plate collectors"? there is more to these people than plate collecting but the movie leaves it all out.. that dog walking guy is pretty funny though.

interesting for a while, then gets undone by its own cleverness

[schlag · 23 June 2002]

This movie reminds me very much of the semi-accurate documentary "Roger And Me". It begins with an interesting overview of the origins of Levittown, including archival footage of interviews with William Levitt, who conceived the idea. Initially, the movie seems to take efforts to show the types of people who lived or continue to reside in this planned community.

There are many people interviewed who are evidently the original homeowners, and quite often they are just average, everyday people giving their view on life in Levittown. But then there are some others who appear when the satirical element begins in this film. One of the more amusing is the woman who's house is haunted with ghosts (or so she says) or the couple who notice their neighbor walking three different dogs, three times a day.

But one of the more irritating is the seemingly contrived performance of a wannabe karaoke singer who lets us sit in on his therapy session. While he pours out his feelings of worthlessness and of being "trapped" in the town, one can only wonder if this poor soul is nothing more than a wannabe comic auditioning for a gig with an unfunny bit of putdown shtick. The mere idea that living in Levittown puts people in therapy seems to be a silly, politically correct notion that is just so worn out, it's not even believable.

There are two notable people who show up in the film: Bill Griffith, creator of the comic strip "Zippy the Pinhead"; and Eddie Money, the '80's singer best known for hit hit "Two Tickets To Paradise" (Money actually is shown perforiming his anthem before an audience at his alma-mater). The contrasts between each of them is very evident. Griffith, like the lame karaoke singer, seems to take pride in belittling Levittown, while Money, who does express that he moved on, still seems to be fond of the place.

The satire actually works in a few instances, the more memorable moment being the intercutting of a real estate agent giving the viewer a tour of a home up for sale, all the while trying to put the best spin on an otherwise sad situation. On the other hand, there seems to be a real effort made to portray the VFW veterans as buffoons during a flag-buring ceremony.

This wasn't a bad film, but more like one that just ran out of steam. The interesting personalities in the beginning of the film expand out a small amount, but the tone really turns to more of a mocking one in the end. This comes off somewhat condescending as if the message were it's tragic if one were to live or be raised in suburbia.