Wildlife is a great example of how parents underestimate their children. I wonder what the hell happened to Paul Dano when he was a kid, that he would choose Wildlife to be his first feature film. What is New York City’s version of a Montana based wild fire?
Our entry to the story is Joe Brinson (Ex Oxenbould), the teenage son of Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Jeanette (Carey Mulligan). The have recently moved to Montana, where Jerry is the golf pro, Jeanette’s a stay at home mom, and Joe is the diligent student trying out for football to impress dad. Things appear fine….until Jerry loses his job. This sets in chain a series of events that Joe finds strange, confusing, and scary, like, why is dad taking a job fire fighting? Or why is mom not working at Warren Miller’s (Bill Camp) dealership when she said she was?
Wildlife is strongest in its tiny moments, from Joe’s point of view. Once Jerry loses his job, Joe sees his world slowly get stranger. Jerry is sleeping on the couch, or taking more trips to the store to get beer. There’s hushed noises followed by loud door slams. Jerry and Jeanette give vague speeches and hope Joe understands. Then things get even weirder when Jerry goes to fire fight; mom gets a job, and mentions this Warren Miller guy. Then she brings him up again. And again. All of a sudden, Joe’s waking up to no breakfast, and going to bed with no dinner. Mom’s also dressing up nicer than normal for some reason. These little hints could be figured out by a boy like Joe who cares deeply for his family, and Dano’s movie builds slowly but effectively for a long time, merging in these little hints with foreboding views of mountains or red lit horizons from the onslaught of fire.
Carey Mulligan has to do a lot of Wildlife’s heavy lifting. Apologies to Jake Gyllenhaal, but he’s basically out by the 20 minute mark and doesn’t return until the end, and Ed Oxenbould internalizes everything, so there’s lots of blankness to that performance that tides you over to Mulligan. With all the stuff the story asks her to do, the talented actress is reasonably successful at playing Jeanette. We see how Jerry’s departure has freed Jeanette to be selfish and go for what she wants, because apparently neither Jerry nor Joe are providing her with any satisfaction at home (Jerry I get, but her dismissal of her son seems a tad far fetched as into him as Jeanette was at the beginning). This thing with Warren Miller frees Jeanette even more, and we see her become who she wants to be, living out her 20s that she never got. Though horrible for the unit, Jeanette’s self discovery propels the film forward, giving the movie this thrilling but depressing climax it is building towards, thanks to Carey Mulligan’s selfless portrayal of a selfish jerk.
Wildlife will not be an easy watch for any teen child of estranged or divorced parents. Paul Dano’s debut show’s his promise as a director, mostly able to navigate overly sad subject matter and make it compelling and interesting for everyone. I personally would have loved Jake Gyllenhaal to have made a cameo as his Nightcrawler character spying on his wife; that would have been funny and a crossover no one saw coming…