It’s a very tasteful heart-tugger — a drama of disarmingly level-headed empathy that glides along with wit, assurance, and grace, and has something touching and resonant to say about the current climate of American bullying.

Wonder is as manipulative as movies get, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes a story needs to steer you; sometimes a story tells you what to feel, but redeems itself by virtue of the sincerity with which it shows why you should feel that way.

Much of the film’s success does reside upon Chbosky’s mostly restrained execution, but it is Tremblay that carries it. His fully rendered and exceptional performance is something of a miracle as it joyously goes past the prosthetics and into the core of his character’s roller coaster of emotions.

Wonder does occasionally suffer from kid-movie pitfalls, straining to be cute or mining humor from ridiculously precocious little ones. But mostly it succeeds in telling not one complicated story, but many, and giving the experience of being a confused or lonely or scared youngster the space it deserves.

Giving the film credit where it’s due, Wonder never cheats in its pursuit of emotion. It’s never mawkish or manipulative, and its characters are so well-established both in the writing and in the performances that the movie ultimately does the hard work of earning those damp Kleenexes.