‘Wilson’ deftly avoids indie cliches
Not a film for everyone, “Wilson” is a well-cast, Daniel Clowes-based and scripted tale of a modern day Midwestern misanthrope, who discovers that in spite of his best attempts at sabotaging his life, he may have something to live for in early old age after all. In fact, it might be dubbed “Forrest Grump.”
Yes, in spite of its hipster origins, “Wilson” is another one of those American indie film efforts that begins with voice-over and will involve an unorthodox nuclear family forming around a thoroughgoing misfit crank. When we first meet Wilson (a beardo’d Woody Harrelson), his only friend (Brett Gelman) and the friend’s very angry wife (Mary Lynn Rajskub) announce they are moving away.
Also Wilson’s dad dies. Wilson is left with the only creature he has a relationship with — his terrier, Pepper. But all that changes when Wilson seeks out his ex-wife Pippi (a great Laura Dern), a woman who left him, supposedly aborted their child and then went off the deep end into meth addiction and prostitution. After typically blurting out his wife’s real name and sordid past to a stunned co-worker, Wilson discovers Pippi is clean and working as a waitress using a pseudonym. They reunite awkwardly, and after Pippi confesses that she, in fact, had the child and put her up for adoption, Wilson the misanthrope is rather uncharacteristically elated. You can probably fill in most of the blanks.
Among the other standouts in this cast are Cheryl Hines as Pippi’s judgmental suburban matron sister, Polly, Margo Martindale as a randy middle-aged singleton and the always welcome Judy Greer.
While Harrelson is amusingly barking mad as the screen’s latest bigname curmudgeon (following Patrick Stewart’s great turn in “Logan”), “Wilson,” which was once slated to be directed by Alexander Payne (“Nebraska”), the poet of Midwestern malaise, is so formulaic at times, it risks being just another banal, sentimental “family is all you have” message movie. But the key is the way Clowes, the cast and former mumblecore (ugh) director Craig Johnson (“The Skeleton Twins”) go one step over the line every time they serve up a cliche.
Claire (Isabella Amara), the birth daughter of Pippi and Wilson, is not at all charming. She is tormented at high school by fat-shaming bullies, angry, phone-obsessed and not happy at all about her birth parents or her rich adoptive parents, who are “afraid of poor people.” “Wilson” may be often banal. But it has visuals by the estimable Frederick Elmes (“Blue Velvet,” “The Ice Storm,” “Paterson”), and the quirks and cast ratchet it up a notch.
(“Wilson” contains profanity and some sexually suggestive material.)