आलोचक समीक्षाएं

The film is at once gently intimate and breathtakingly expansive in scope.

Throughout its trials and tribulations, Wild Life softly asks the question: what kind of life do you want to live? What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind? And these kinds of inspired actions certainly move the heart and soul and prove that the best of humanity has their heart in the right place at the very least.

While it has a personal touch of a love letter, this documentary is nonetheless the work of compassionate filmmakers who know any adventure when they see one.

It’s still beautiful to look at, but I most enjoyed Wild Life as a complicated procedural about land use (don’t expect to see that blurbed on a poster any time soon).

Sidestepping thornier questions of optics and ownership, Wild Life ultimately takes the side of nature over politics, and most viewers will follow suit.

While the altruistic nature of the Tompkins’ intentions finally swayed the hearts and minds of the country, a more thorough examination of this process (and all the lawyers involved) would have been welcomed. But this really isn’t a film that’s interested in that complexity.

Wild Life is at its best when it focuses on Kris’s path toward renewed purpose after an unspeakable loss. By committing that journey to film, Vasarhelyi and Chin show off an invaluable skill: knowing when a story is worthy of preservation.

Kris and Doug’s moving love story should be the emotional foundation of the documentary, but it’s edited in a bit too late. Paradoxically, however, we also crave more scenes of their individual transitions from bohemians to business titans.

Where Wild Life could have been a nuanced look into how wealth and ecology collide, instead it’s merely just a celebration of these rich people doing the “right thing” with their money. But who really pays?