Following the wild cult success of 2015’s Carol, director Todd Haynes returns with a children’s movie that’s as wondrous as its title promises. Wonderstruck comes from the novel and screenplay by Brian Selznick (who wrote the source material for Martin Scorsese’s Hugo), and with the help of cinematographer/long-time collaborator Edward Lachman, Haynes has created a gorgeous, textured film that follows two deaf children in two different stories: Half the film is a beautiful black-and-white silent film set during the ’20s and the other half is a vibrant time capsule of the ’70s. It’s not just kid stuff though. The movie has a mystery element that leaves viewers to piece together how the two stories are connected. And as is the case with all Haynes movies, Wonderstruck warrants repeated viewings, as each one may reveal something new lingering in the mind.

While the stars of the film are newcomers (child actors Millicent Simmonds, Oakes Fegley, and Jaden Michael), Haynes is also reunited with his regulars, including Julianne Moore (in their fourth collaboration), who stars as a glamorous silent film actress, costume designer Sandy Powell, and composer Carter Burwell; he also revisits familiar themes from his past movies—like Carol, Wonderstruck is a New York period drama, and more unexpectedly, it’s a great companion piece to the rock and roll picture Velvet Goldmine, both inspired by Oscar Wilde and David Bowie. During the New York Film Festival, the director sat down with GQ to talk about his myriad of pop culture references, figuring out the complex arrangement of Wonderstruck, finding his breakout deaf actor, and the Internet sensation that has become Carol.

GQ: You have a really great sense of making movies that transcend the screen time. I think about them for so long afterwards. And that makes them so eternally watchable.

Todd Haynes: That’s so great. Of course the movies that inspired me and the movies I think live on past their times are like that. They’re movies you can’t really completely consume in one sitting and they do linger and beg further questions and you are nourished by watching them again. To feel like I’m doing that is really great. I don’t know if a person sets out to do that, but I think there are some films of mine that are crammed with ideas. Velvet Goldmine is an example I think of because it’s a distillation of so much popular cultural history—queer, British, American, music, literary, cinematic history—in this dense and concentrated network. I hope because there’s a rock and roll beat driving that movie, there is a lot of pleasure in consuming all that and you’re not overwhelmed by it. Similarly in I’m Not There. But because it has rock and roll as the mode and the subject that it would have a sense of velocity and life that makes it fun, too.

How did you arrange the pieces in Wonderstruck?

I knew it meant starting by putting as much love and attention into all of the components we shot and created on set designing each half of the two double narratives and time periods and making sure I had the material to create the jigsaw puzzle that it is. But then I knew that the way it would move and function as a whole would be decided in the editing room and that’s really where I think the film took its real form. It was a tremendously fun and great process and my editor Affonso Gonçalves is so brilliant and thoughtful and sensitive. This is our third film together, and it feels like we really do have such a great method for working.