Wildflower

Wildflower, Matt Smukler's debut feature, follows Bea, a plainspoken teenager navigating life with neurodivergent parents. The film follows Bea's high-school drama, cheeky romance, and the struggles of her best friend and relatives. The film is inspired by Smukler's family and features a cast of distinctive characters. Kiernan Shipka leads an endearing cast in her animated portrayal of Bea, who lies comatose in a hospital bed, surrounded by worried family members. The film explores Bea's life from childhood to the recent past, narrated by her omniscient subconscious in VoiceOver. Bea's intra-family relations, resentments, and communication style are explored through flashbacks. Her feuding grandmothers Loretta and Peg, her neurotic aunt Joy, and her anxious husband Ben, are all involved in their bickering. Bea's parents, Sharon and Derek, are calm and collected, maintaining a steady faith that their daughter will wake up. Bea grew up hearing other adults describe her parents as "special," a euphemism for neurodivergent. Bea recounts how Sharon and Derek met, the rush of their marriage, and the thrill of her birth. However, everyone else, including Peg and Earl, struggle to trust their daughter to make her own decisions. Loretta, Derek's mother, harbors animus for Sharon's family but seems less fazed. There is an unacknowledged but suffocating assumption that the new parents simply can't do it. Wildflower is a film that reinterprets the experiences of disabled characters through the perspective of a child turned caretaker, Bea. The film follows Bea's journey from her early years in a mobile community to her senior year in Las Vegas, where she learns valuable lessons about her parents and their neurotypical lens.

Bea's early years are filled with adventure and freedom, but her exposure to life outside her immediate family leads to a decrease in her tolerance for Sharon and Derek. She reads their laid-back attitude as clumsy and finds their carefree approach frustrating. After a driving lesson goes wrong, Bea is sent to live with her aunt Joy and Ben, who teach her skills she missed out on but annoys her. Wildflower quickly moves on to Bea's senior year, where she hawks school raffle tickets with her best friend Mia, hoping to win a free trip to Disney. Her attitude changes, but she still has a renewed appreciation for her parents. The film gains momentum when it settles into Bea's recent past, chronicling her romance with Ethan, a fight with Mia, her guidance counselor's insistence on college application, and a petty feud with their high school's resident mean girl. The film highlights Bea's struggle to overcome her condescending relationship with her parents and everyone around her. When she starts to see them in the same light as the rest of the world, she overcompensates by turning herself into a caretaker, resurfacing childhood resentments and revealing hard-to-swallow truths. The film culminates in a tumultuous blow-up, but relationships are repaired, amends made, and Bea learns valuable lessons along the way.

This was another film I watched without knowing anything about it. The only star I knew from it was Jackie Weaver. It's a film about 2 people with learning disabilities who marry and have a baby, and the lives they all lead. Based on a true story.

It speaks volumes about the way our society sees each other. About what normal is and should be, and that just because you're seen to have a disability, doesn't mean you can't live a better life with someone considered not to have one.

There's a huge statement n here about people who wish to be what they consider to be normal and acceptable in society, and yet they seem to have the lives most flawed and unsatisfying.

It's beautifully written and flawlessly directed and I absolutely loved it.

Shipka who plays Bea absolutely rocks the role. I'll be looking for more from her. Dash Mihok and Samantha Hyde were way down the cast list and yet their performances were so strong throughout. Hyde was flawless.

Don't miss this.

Didn't know what to expect of this movie. The title sounds good and watched in on a plane. I was so pleasantly surprised with how good it is. It's not the usual challenges a teenager will face and the cast makes everything so believable. Great acting, good script and wonderful balance of family drama, emotions, comedy and a touch of romance. There are a few times I nearly tested up. The movie is well- paced and the comedy is good too as it keeps it light hearted amidst the sadness and fry you feel for the female lead in her challenges. Highly recommend to watch and it's watchable together with your family too.

"Wildflower" is a movie based on a true story about family love and family dynamics.

The story starts kind of bumpy, but finds its rythm quickly, as it moves from the current timeline, in which Bea is in the hospital and her family along with a social worker are trying to piece together what happened, to the past as Bea herself narrates her life's story from her parents marriage to her birth, to her having to take care of them.

The movie overall is enjoyable and the pace of it was nicely handled, as to not confuse the viwer with the back and forths of the timeline. The performances were good as well.

Honestly I was surprised to see the rating on here, my friends and I thought this was a really sweet and enjoyable film. The cast works well together and there is consistent humour throughout. This is a heartwarming story about family, and if you're in the mood for a feel-good film I would recommend the watch!

It does contain some mature themes and language which means it's probably not best for young children, but I think the film handles these topics in a way that isn't gratuitous or inherently explicit. The film is not shying away from very real and human topics and I appreciate that they do not overly censor these issues, but at the same time it does not glorify them either. Wonderfully handled, tbh!