Wildlife

This film tells the story of a couple and a teenage son, whose lives are changed by the husband's decision to fight a wildfire.

The story is simple but is surprisingly engaging. Carey Mulligan does a great job yet again, in portraying her varied and complex emotions. In fact, the husband, wife and son all portray what they are going through beautifully and convincingly, and I really feel for every character in the household.

I have so much respect for restrained filmmaking for which this movie is an example. Its steady pace and tasteful design gives it authenticity, allowing you to feel like you are living the life of the main character Joe. The acting is superb and the characters are living, breathing individuals filled with hopes dreams and independence. Though Jeanette falters at times, she is doing what is she sees is necessary for her and her son's survival. The emotion on her face, flickering like a shorted lightbulb, portrays her fragility with great depth. The score of the film is great. The story, though maybe too subdued for some, stays with you long after this earnest movie reaches its resolution.

Carey Mulligan and Ed Oxenbould are great in this lovely drama. The music is riveting and so is the sound editing; both ambient. I am quite intrigued by so many scenes very captivating! So glad Wildlife is available on showtime, I would highly recommend it.

I usually like both coming of age movies and marriage implosion movies, but, for me, the secret to those kind of movies is that you have to like the characters so that you root for the relationships to work. Here I just didn't. Carey Mullgian's character is so hard to identify with, as she makes mistake after mistake, and Jake Gyllenhaal's is just not there for most of the movie that it is hard to root for the marriage to work. Really liked the direction, though, good debut for Paul Dano, but the screenplay left me a bit flat. I still think it's a worthy watch.

It's a decent film, nothing memorable or amazing, but it does have a personality.

Set in the 60s, we follow this family of 3 as the parents' relationship and lives fall appart and the son stands in the middle like a deer caught in the headlights. It's a four-person, five-act story that could easily be a stage play.

Carrey Mulligan plays the mother as a mixture of Blanche DuBois / Madame Bovary, someone who imagined a better life than what she got and reaches a breaking point.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays the dad who is similarly disappointed by his lack of progress in life and has his hopes pinned on his son becoming something better than he could ever become, embarking on a desperate attempt to salvage his dignity.

Then there's the son (Ed Oxenbould), who most of the time is just at a loss. He is presented as the only mature/responsible person in the family, who is confused and frustrated by his parents' behaviours but simultaneously too reserved/repressed to do anything about it.

Bill Camp plays the catalyst in the family's implosion - not so much a separate character, as an embodiment of the family's desperation.

It's not unpleasant to watch and it has a nice stage-play feel to it, what with the addition of the poetic backdrop of the neverending forest fires that burn throughout the summer and until the arrival of the first snow. However, it also doesn't manage to be captivating and all the characters feel underdeveloped. The mum and dad are practically the same person: the frustrated adult who - at one point - tried too hard to achieve a better life and got punished for it. The son's character is equally underwhelming: he was probably meant to be this stoic, introverted, keeping his feelings to himself and hurting in silence, but he just comes across as bland and boring.

American Beauty and Revolutionary Road did it better.