Problem ‘Wild’
Late in the movie “Wildlife,” Jake Gyllenhaal’s character, Jerry, turns to his kid and says, “It’s a wild life. Isn’t it, son?” Proclaiming the title is cute when it’s Christopher Lloyd in “Back to the Future” or Samuel L. Jackson in “Snakes on a Plane,” but here it’s just ham-handed.
It’s 1960. Jerry’s been working as an amateur firefighter in a distant forest, and his wife, Jeanette (Carey Mulligan), has morphed into Joan Crawford seemingly overnight, boozing, yelling and sexing the days away. Lives are upended and everyone is unhappy. Nobody needs to tell us that things are pretty wild.
But that’s the big problem with Paul Dano’s directing debut. His movie is, in many ways, solid and admirable, but awash in duh. “The 1950s weren’t all they were cracked up to be” is such a well-worn theme, it’s practically a genre.
The drama is set in Montana and at the start the family is very “Leave It to Beaver.” Jerry works at a country club, Jeanette is a happy homemaker and son Joe (Ed Oxen- bould) is an honors student. Then everything goes to hell when Jerry loses his job. His masculine pride is shattered, and he spontaneously leaves town to go put out wildfires for a buck an hour. Because what’s more macho than that?
Left to her own devices at home, Jeanette’s beaming smile turns into a smirk, as she rattles off cruel comments to her son and forces him to witness her escalating behavior — not from the periphery, but dead-on. Some of the things she does are clearly meant to support them financially, but the vicious way that she subjects Joe to her machinations is tough for viewers to buy into. We certainly don’t sympathize.
Gyllenhaal and Mulligan are in fine form here, but too much of the screenplay, written by Dano and Zoe Kazan, doesn’t ring true.
The exception being Joe. The teenage son is played so gently and earnestly by Oxenbould, an excellent and conscientious actor who is our only way into the story. You’ll wish his character had more to say. Running time: 104 minutes. Rated PG-13 (sex and language). Now playing.