‘Wildlife’ brilliantly captures family’s breakdown
As “Wildlife” begins, actor turned director Paul Dano (“Love & Mercy”) immediately establishes his eye for minute details, immersing us in Great Falls, Mont., of 1960. On a golf course there is Jerry Brinson (Jake Gyllenhaal), a hale and hearty kind of guy who is soon fired from this country club for being inappropriately friendly with members. Jerry’s happy disposition disappears as a series of events are unleashed that will disrupt if not destroy his family. Dano charts this series of events with surprise, even shock. The unexpected becomes the normal. Like the family members themselves, we see what’s happening but we’re not sure what to make of it. Dano never telegraphs “He’s pretty crazy” or “She’s completely crackers.” That’s because “Wildlife,” which was adapted by Dano and his longtime real-life partner, Zoe Kazan, from the Richard Ford novel, is a startling, galvanizing even, look at a couple freaking out and losing any sense of who they are. All of this is seen from the viewpoint of their only son, Joe (Australian discovery Ed Oxenbould). At 14, he’s quiet, wellbehaved, bright. He knows things are messed up when his dad just goes off to fight not-so-distant forest fires. That flabbergasts his mother, Jeannette (Carey Mulligan, giving a career best performance), a stylish, witty woman whose smoking and drinking can’t quite conceal her panic at being stranded and stuck with their kid, not knowing if Jerry will really come back. Jeannette finds a part-time job as a swimming instructor, where she meets portly, older Mr. Miller (Bill Camp), who is single with a profitable auto-parts business and a big house. Jeannette takes Joe to dinner there — and her “Wildlife” combusts. What happens between Joe’s desperate mom and this man who could not be further from his dad in every way is nightmarish, ghoulishly comical, horrifying. “Wildlife” shows Dano to be an inspired director in his storytelling and with his cast. Has Gyllenhaal ever been this good? You watch and can’t help wonder, “Will he go berserk? Become violent? Is he crazy or just depressed?” Similarly, Mulligan presents a woman who, in her volcanic mood swings and clammy desperation, seems a forerunner of the angry women who in just a few years would lead a feminist wave of change.