Wildlife, 2018.
Directed by Paul Dano.
Starring Carey Mulligan, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ed Oxenbould and Bill Camp.
SYNOPSIS:
A boy witnesses his parents’ marriage falling apart after his mother finds another man.
Paul Dano makes a staggering debut with this emotionally charged adaptation of Richard Ford’s 1990 novel, a meticulously assembled drama about family, masculinity and female agency in 1960s America topped by a trio of towering performances.
Teenager Joe (Ed Oxenbould) moves with his peppy mother Jeanette (Carey Mulligan) and high-strung father Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) to suburban Montana in the pursuit of greener pastures. When Jerry loses his job and frustratedly signs up for the fire service to tackle nearby wildfires, Jeanette and Joe are left alone in the homestead, allowing Jeanette’s mask of composure and happiness to soon slip away.
There have been literally hundreds of prestige pictures about white, middle-class families slogging through a discontented suburban life, so what is it that makes Wildlife so damn enthralling regardless? The script, co-written by Dano and his partner Zoe Kazan, pointedly examines the meaning of happiness for man and wife, in an era where expectations for both genders were rigidly set and aggressively adhered to, quite clearly in spite of personal desire to do otherwise.
This forms the crux of the early conflict between Jerry and Jeanette; is his refusal to take a job bagging groceries born from a desire to “do more”, or simply a fear that it’s emasculating to a man of his age and standing? And when a new romantic prospect courts Jeanette while Jerry is away on manoeuvres, her ingrained passivity makes it difficult for her to communicate this fact to either her son or her husband.
They’re both characters at once sympathetic and frustrating, lent tremendous gravity by stunning turns from Gyllenhaal and especially Mulligan. Given that Jerry spends lengthy sections of the film off-screen, Mulligan has to carry the bulk of the emotional baggage on her back, and she does a splendid, absolutely awards-worthy job.
But the A-listers don’t remotely surprise in their brilliance, at which point we must discuss young Ed Oxenbould, who as unwitting audience member to his parents’ possibly imploding marriage, conveys so much anguish and uncertainty through stoic facial expressions.
Dano has a real knack for lingering on haunting images here, and it serves both him and his film incredibly well. On-the-rise cinematographer Diego García meanwhile does splendid work evoking the period without erecting a neon sign, and perhaps nothing in the movie is quite as stirring as the occasional glimpses of the wildfire raging in the distant mountains.
Despite its fairly lithe 104 minute runtime, Wildlife revels in the power of eerie quiet, where loaded glances rule the day and silence can be as violent as the explosive verbal spars which also inevitably emerge. It does unravel ever so slightly in the final stretch with a forgivable yet abundant detour into card-carrying melodrama, but the movie’s silent scream for the victims of marital discord – in this case, basically everyone involved – nevertheless rings out with searing conviction.
Carey Mulligan turns in her strongest performance to date in this meticulously constructed, quietly devastating family drama.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more film rambling.
