Dangereuse sous tous rapports

Something Wild is the type of film many viewers today long for, a mid-budget comedy with reasonable stakes and a pleasing, laidback demeanor. There's nothing smug or selfish about the film; it's genuinely trying to please, and does so effortlessly, with broad appeal. It's got a great cast, including young up-and-comers Jeff Daniels, Ray Liotta, and Melanie Griffith, a greater director in Johnathon Demme, who would find his ultimate success in directing Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia, and a great script, which bends, twists, and contorts to give a new perspective every half hour or so. What an unexpected, merry pleasure.

The film follows Charles Driggs, played by Daniels, an uptight yuppie who meets Audrey Hankel, played by Griffith. Audrey is a wild child, and soon convinces stiff Charles to ditch work and follow her to the country to meet her mother and attend her class reunion. The arrival of Ray Sinclair, played by Liotta, complicates matters further. It's a comfortable, nestled film, mostly taking place over the course of only a day.

The film is smartly written and directed, but it lives and dies with its three principle leads, who each turn in great work. All three build their characters from the ground up, exaggerating their central traits just enough to deliver the essential character information throughout. The script has little time for backstory or introductions, relying on the mannerisms and body cues of the cast to fill the audience in. It's a bold approach, but it works. The film also steadily shifts in tone and tension, demanding subtle tweaks to each performance as the film plays. Again, the cast delivers flawlessly.

Speaking of the script, it's a dandy. The premise is thin on its surface (fun-loving girl meets yuppie, yuppie loosens up) and the potential for excess cliché or exposition is high. Something Wild sidesteps these pratfalls with ease, setting its focus tightly on its characters and exposing their psyches early and often. One of the most peculiar but exciting elements is the shift in tone throughout. It's steady and assured, motivated and appropriately weighted.

Motivations change organically too; characters grow plausibly, in the course of only a day, because the film works holistically. Character growth feeds into theme, theme feeds into style, style feeds into substance. Something Wild is intrinsically opposed to the banality of corporate life, 80s corporate life specifically, and this resistance to banality motivates the action and characters. It's understood without explicit statement - everyone needs something wild in their life eventually. Viewers will be hard pressed to disagree.

Something Wild is a cult classic with greatness all around and throughout. It's an easy-going film that ratches up the tension slowly and thrives within its own details. All three central characters would go on to fantastic careers, as would its director, and it's easy to see why. They're likeable and confident, charismatic and convincing. The film itself is a neat little encapsulation of the 80s trying to escape itself, sick of its own cowardice and corporate kowtowing. It's also a refreshing, skewed take on the machismo of the era, with an unexpected but earned payoff.

Jeff Daniels has never been better, Ray Liotta is wonderfully sexy and menacing, and even Melanie Griffith (whom I normally dislike) works well here. One of my favorite Demme movies, this one features all kinds of interesting little character bits (a Demme trademark), and a cool little detail that I only noticed upon my 3rd or 4th viewing: at the high school reunion, after Charlie and Audrey finish their sweet little dance, the lights flicker and black out for a moment, signaling the end of the first, lighter half of the film. Ray Liotta appears on screen seconds later, bringing with him the all the violence and danger of the second half.

A very simple but elegant touch. Check this one out, it's a really good movie. Great soundtrack too! 8/10.

Sometimes you have to search high and low, but you really can find some interesting films made in the late 1980s. Though Jonathan Demme's film is not perfect, it still brilliantly outshines most of the crud made back then. Something Wild is the study of two souls who seem to come from different worlds going on a crazy road trip full of sex, violence, and even a high school reunion.

It all begins inside a tiny diner in New York City when openly free-spirited Audrey (Melanie Griffith) notices yuppie Charlie (Jeff Daniels) sneak out on paying his bill. She confronts him outside, and the two of them end up jumping in her car and taking off on a sunny Friday afternoon. At first it would seem that this trip across the state line will merely end in a sexual tryst in a cheap motel, but little does Charlie know, Audrey has all sorts of plans for him that weekend. After some serious hanky-panky, Audrey takes Charlie back to her home town, introduces him to her mother as her husband, and then takes him to her high school reunion. In a development a little bit contrived for this critic's liking, one of Charlie's co-workers also happens to be attending this reunion. This could potentially destroy the facade of the family man on a wild weekend that Charlie is trying to perpetrate. (at this point we learn his wife left him quite a while ago) Further complicating matters is the arrival of Audrey's psychotic ex-husband, played with fearsome intensity by Ray Liotta. From that point on, this film which has largely gone for laughs, becomes rather intense and often violent.

This film scores major points by absolutely keeping the audience guessing. At least until the third act when the film can likely conclude in no other way than it does. The film avoids making Charlie out to be a totally predictable sap who is just along for a wild ride with a crazy woman. Charlie has his own secrets, and a whole hidden side of his own that comes out when it has to. Demme places some marginally famous people in some truly odd cameos, and spends a little bit more time with peripheral characters than some people would. It gives the film a very "human" kind of feeling as we get to know at least a little something about even someone working as a waitress or at a motel. The film maybe meanders a bit here and there, but that is understandable since so much of it plays out like a road trip. The actors are exceptional, and the film is full of color and energy. Highly recommended. 9 of 10 stars.

The Hound.

Rewatching Something Wild recently some 30 years after I first saw it, I was struck by how vividly the craziness of the story stayed in my memory, but also how surprising and unexpected the plot turns were. This is a good sign that that someone took time to craft an excellent plot. In fact, the film makers have lavished tender loving care on every aspect of this film and given it a lot of heart.

Melanie Griffith does everything but set the screen on fire as she takes Jeff Daniel's humdrum office worker life and turns it upside down. We're then taken on a helter-skelter anything-goes trip where the couple leave the city and the staid conventions of middle class life behind as they plunge into a passionate affair and journey deep into the comforting familiarity of small town America with its motels, folksy shops and and kindly people. Ironically this is where the greatest danger lurks in the shape of old flame Ray Liotta, grinning maniacally and flipping the madcap whimsy into insane violence.

Every minor character on this trip fills you with good vibes, in sharp contrast to the sinister kind of twist that current-day Hollywood mainstream gives to bit players. The soundtrack, for fans of 80s music, is fantastic - you're bound to hear stuff you haven't heard for ages.

This film works on many levels: the actors are charming and charismatic, and their parts are well and sympathetically written. It's a loving memoir of a materialistic decade that many thought was money-obsessed but was filled with many hapless characters like this reviewer who lived similar episodes in their own lives: except not so wild!

It's easy to take actors like Ray Liotta and Jeff Daniels for granted with the benefit of hindsight. Both of them have had ups and (horrible) downs, crossing genres seamlessly or inexplicably. It can also be argued that neither one of them has been more gratifying, more liberated, more, well, wild than in their breakthrough roles in Johnathan Demme's road movie. With the help of Melanie Griffith's femme fatale they make a very interesting movie about finding your wild side, but also finding out about the nasty underbelly lurking beneath society's pickett fences.

After being accused of ripping off a diner, a yuppie accountant named Charles sets off on a wild road trip with the free-spirited Lulu. Along the way she manages to bring out something special in Charlie, accusing him of being a closet rebel. They decide to get themselves in various troublesome situations, like running out on roof-splittingly expensive restaurants. They soon run into trouble, however, when a former love of Lulu's (or Audrey's), Ray, turns up at her high school reunion, after what appears to be done time in a jail.

Demme's film switches from screwball situation comedy to black farce and then to an uncomfortable menace. At times we're not really sure what this woman wants with Charles, whether she is after money, scheming, or indeed really has fallen for our floppy-haired protagonist. Daniels injects his hapless hero with all the dopey charm and middle-class wit one could ever hope to see in an 80s suit-wearing yuppie. He wants to eschew his suburban divorce style for a rebellious wild-at-heart rebel, and insists upon doing it with the impulsive, slightly reckless, but utterly alluring Lulu. The problem is, when he discovers his wild side, he has to deal with the ensuing problems: He's just been made Vice-President at his firm - What would his work mates think? How does he deal with the psychotic ex-con boyfriend? Does he really know what this woman wants? He appears, for most of the movie, to be a sap, who could fall for more than he could handle. But coincidentally, he's a pretty good liar, so maybe he's no better than the rest of them.

But even if the underlying philosophy doesn't hit you, then the comedic set-pieces definitely should. One particular scene involving handcuffs, suspenders, a dinky motel and a a phone call to his work office particularly sticks in the mind. It's not often you get movies like this. Movies that share a good balance between intelligence and farce. How can you go wrong?