Martin D. Goodkin

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Entertainment > Movies > Wildlife--movie Review
 

Wildlife--movie Review




Every year I see 2-3 movies that I have been suckered into whether because of word of mouth or a performance is hailed or it just sounds like something I would be interested in and then I come home to read the critics so I can find out what I saw and/or missed. “Wildlife” is such a film.

I am a huge fan of Jake Gyllenhaal which is one of the reasons I came to see this film and though he is perfect in his role sadly he is missing from the middle of the movie. He, Jerry, is the husband of Jeanette, played by Carey Mulligan, and they are the parents of 14 year old Joe, played by Ed Oxenbould.

We, along with Joe watch the marriage fall apart, seeing, and hearing, things a teenage boy shouldn’t have to understand at that age. The family lives in Grand Falls, Montana, with Jerry having lost his job and, in desperation, not understanding where he belongs in his life, runs off to fight fires for a dollar an hour.

It’s 1960 and Jeanette, after years of feeling dissatisfied, finds herself lost and acts out in ways that are harmful to her son though through his passivity it is almost as if he is a reporter telling a story about people he doesn’t know and the three, including him, don’t know who they or each are.

Douglas Sirk, a very successful director from the 1950s and 1960s would have made a very dramatic, 4 hankie picture out of this story but the director here, Paul Dano, just tells the story that he and Zoe Kazan wrote letting the actors do their job.

Gyllenhaal does such a good job that when he is off screen, for most of the center of the film, you feel his presence. Carey Mulligan has all the ‘showy’ scenes and is getting a lot of raves but to me she is more bipolar than a woman going through a crisis which I think may be the reason this film doesn’t work for me.

Ed Oxenbould’s 14 year old, in his silence and facial expressions, really is the glue that holds this film together especially when he realizes that his parents are human beings and have faults.

“Wildlife”, with some beautiful mountain scenery, is an okay picture though nothing special.

Movie trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoJpVQTY_t4&t=11s

posted on Nov 13, 2018 8:58 PM ()

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