Wildlife review: Debuting director Paul Dano helms this impressive adaptation of Richard Ford’s 1990s novel, one he also co-wrote with partner Zoe Kazan.
Wildlife review by Paul Heath.
Wildlife review
Hot from its impressive debut at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, comes the European debut of Paul Dano’s striking directorial debut Wildlife, a 1960s-set drama that lands in Cannes as the big opener for the celebrated Critics’ Week.
Based on the 1991 novel of the same name by Richard Ford, Wildlife is set in Great Falls, Montana where teenager Joe Brinson (Ed Oxenbould) lives with his mother and father in a rather insignificant house, in a rather insignificant street. This is sixties small-town, mid-western America where Joe’s father Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) works as assistant at a local golf course, while mother Jeanette (Carey Mulligan) remains at home. An idealistic life is hardly expected early on, the young Joe split between the wills of his mother to do well in school and concentrate on his education – something which is evident that he excels at during the opening scenes – while his father projects wills of shining at football, a sport which the young man has little-to-no interest or skill in. In the opening scenes we see Jerry lose his job after inappropriate interactions with the club’s members, something which hits the blue-collar worker hard, his ability to find another job improbable in such a small community. Clearly a proud man, Jerry eventually gives in to his wife’s returning to work as the main breadwinner before eventually landing a high-risk position himself by joining a team of workers assembled to help deal with fires raging across the rural surroundings upstate.
Related: Ruby Sparks review
Jerry absence from family life – something which the feature concentrates upon for the considerable middle-section of this clear three-act structure – is seemingly the final nail in the coffin for his relationship with his wife, their bond growing further and further apart with the miles between them, Dano’s camera concentrating on the reactions and feelings from his youngest cast member as the destructive, hard-hitting narrative plays out before us.
Wildlife review
Teaming with partner Zoe Kazan to adapt Ford’s famous novel, Dano is clearly a talented filmmaker. Here, the two screenwriters take a simple tale of family life – a familiar subject at this year’s festival – and add layers and layers of depth to the three central characters at the heart of this touching, and at times hard-hitting tale. Gyllenhaal impresses, though his position in the credits list (he’s listed as the ‘and’ on the promo material and the end credits) signal his limited involvement, largely confined to the opening reel, though when he is on-screen, he commands every scene. Mulligan too gives a multiple-gear showcase of a performance, the actress asked to shift from adoring mother-figure in the first scenes to something completely different once Jerry leaves at the end of the first third.
That thriving middle section is perhaps one of the stand-out sections of the movie, Jerry’s absence clearing the way for Mulligan as Jeannette, and in particular Oxenbould given the time to flesh out there characters aplenty. It is the latter who is asked the most of, and the one who delivers abundantly – a role which one could easily see Dano himself playing a decade or so ago.
[ctt template=”10″ link=”ybX5i” via=”yes” ]Wildlife review: Paul Dano makes an impressive directorial debut[/ctt]
Wildlife is a well-rounded, expertly-crafted film – the quality of which we maybe wouldn’t have expected from a first-time director. As fans of the previous Dano/ Kazan screenwriting team-up Ruby Sparks, we predicted to enjoy this film, but going in expecting a rough-edged debut piece from a promising filmmaker with decades ahead of him, we got something completely different – an altogether perfectly formed character-driven piece, near-flawlessly directed, expertly adapted and perfectly honed from its source material. A Cannes stand-out.
Wildlife review by Paul Heath, May 2018.
Wildlife was reviewed at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
