Hugh Grant is on a stellar run of just doing shit. From popping up as Daniel Craig's boyfriend in Knives Out: Glass Onion to playing the campest villain in the nine kingdoms in Dungeons and Dragons to decking himself out in merch at a Blackpink concert, if it's a goofy silly time, then Hugh Grant's mantra seems to be “Count me in”. But his role as an Oompa-Loompa in Timothée Chalamet's Wonka, news which elicited a strong, resounding “Huh?!” when it was announced back in April, might just have swung the pendulum too far. Now, with the horrid reveal of his iteration of the psychotic chocolatier's maybe-definitely slave in the trailer for Wonka, I say: enough. Hugh Grant, I support you in your hi-jinx and tomfoolery, but your little orange guy elicits a kind of fear-based violence in me that can't be quelled. I need this Oompa-Loompa to die.
Timothée Chalamet's whimsical pre-serial killer does half the job for me in the Wonka trailer as, at the end in a kooky little post-credit scene, we see he's trapped Grant's weird creature in a glass jar, which is hopefully airtight. Grant's Oompa-Loompa isn't unlike Oompa-Loompas of yesteryear – he's bright orange, like he's been dipped in Cheeto dust, with a sculpted bouffant of green hair and white eyebrows (someone didn't learn the rule that your eyebrows should be 2 shades darker than your actual hair colour). He's wearing a purple tailcoat and britches with enough pockets to fill a flute and stands about 2 apples tall. But unlike previous versions of the story where little people actors were hired, Wonka's Oompa-Loompas are teeny tiny Tinkerbell-esque creations, small enough to sit on Willy's shoulders and overlook his many atrocities.
I hate this Oompa-Loompa. Hate him. From his first whimsical posh Hugh Grant-ism to his Polka-style dance, looking at him makes me sink into myself while huffing curses at the world with revulsion and ennui.
Maybe it's the uncanny valley of him, the distinctly eerie humanness of him superimposed onto a toy-sized body, like a creepy china baby doll that definitely wants to kill you once the lights go out so you stick in in the wardrobe just in case. He'll probably creepily sing work songs from under a pile of jumpers while you try and sleep, like a Furby whose only route back to his creator in hell is by fire and rocks. This is supposedly a musical, after all.
There's also something pest-like about him, probably reinforced by Wonka trapping him in a glass prison like a bug. Wonka's reimagination of how the Oompa-Loompas ended up in this deranged serial killer's servitude is simply just by accident? Wonka didn't capture them and steal them from their land to toil away in chocolate rivers, no, they followed him into his life by choice, actually. He reminds me of a spider, something I rationally know I shouldn't kill because of the holistic order of nature but also, deep inside, want to so much because something so horrifying shouldn't be allowed to enter my house unannounced. I want to suck him up with a hoover or set my cat on him or throw a heavy book and watch him go splat. I'm not proud of it, but this is what this awful little thing does to me.
Considering everything we know about Willy Wonka and his many human rights violations, Wonka should reasonably be seen as a horror prequel, an exploration into the twisted mind of a megalomaniac with a sweet tooth. Every horror needs its beast and Hugh Grant's gross, horrible Oompa-Loompa is that for me. Give me a hammer and let me murder him before December. There's still time to fix this.
