“Wakefield” is based on a short story by E. L. Doctorow in The New Yorker that would have been better as a one man play than it will appeal to a movie audience.

It is a story told in one voice, that of Howard Wakefield, of a successful businessman, husband and father, who decides to ‘disappear’. He goes up in the attic in a converted carriage house that is part of his home that allows him to spy on his wife and kids, while they have no idea what happened to him.

We follow him as he survives going through garbage at night, all the time talking about what, where he has been, what brought him to this point to want to walk away from his beautiful wife and 2 daughters.

Bryan Cranston is excellent as Howard, and what made me think of his doing it on stage, while Jennifer Garner is his wife Diana and Jason O’Mara, his friend Dirk, who competed for and lost Diana to Howard.

Becoming unkempt with long hair and beard and a general look of a homeless man he is, to a certain point, after being ’gone’ for awhile, can walk around town without being noticed as just one of the many homeless men.

“Wakefield” is not a movie for everyone but it enthralled me to the point that I wanted to know what happened after ‘the end’ appeared on the screen plus I want to read the original short story.

The director and screenwriter Robin Swicord, along with Byron Cranston and a few raccoons, handle what is a one man story while the production values all are first rate.

Movie trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E00DODio0Wk