Wildlife is also the best film of 2018
I jumped the gun.
I said that Roma was the best film of 2018 and I stand by that statement. But I had not yet seen Wildlife, Paul Dano’s directorial debut written with his wife and fellow actress Zoe Kazan. The fact that I think Dano and Kazan make better filmmakers than actors is about the highest compliment I can give them. This is an incredible movie. It is both a perfect period piece but also rings true into the present. History does indeed repeat itself and that couldn’t be more true here.
At the heart of this story is a very quintessential working-class American family. Jeanette, the mother who has “decided” she doesn’t need to work but jumps at the chance to do so; Jerry, the pro-golfer father who feels obliged to pull himself up by his own bootstraps for the sake of his family; and their son Joe whose mother literally said they gave him his name because it sounded the most normal.
Wildlife brings us into a family that is probably very much like our own. It rests on its ability to be relatable and more than succeeds in doing so. But it’s not about their American dream (a story so common it may as well have been the anthem of the Eisenhower administration in which this film was set.) Rather Wildlife is about the degradation of the American family. Dano and Kazan start us off with this blank slate so they can tear it down to its foundations.
It feels almost like a freak accident. Jerry loses his job and refuses to take up lesser work. Instead he decides to go fight fires in the woods for a dollar per hour because that resembles his idyllic version of what a man should do. Jeanette supports her husband as any “good wife” should but secretly begins to build up frustration.
It’s about how we envision ourselves versus who we actually are. The “man” and the “good wife” are archetypes that we are expected to subscribe to just as is the very fundamental idea of the American dream.
But in reality people struggle. There is inequality. There is poverty. There is unemployment. There are real problems that don’t fit on the cover of a Look magazine. That is what the Brinson’s are faced with and it forces them to reassess who they are.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan are electric. I might even say that Mulligan is the best actress of the year (and don’t sell Gyllenhaal short either, he is superb even in fewer scenes) They portray this couple so truthfully that it should make us all reflect on our own struggles. It certainly did so for me.
But the star power is not necessarily the focus of this story. Rather Joe, played by newcomer Ed Oxenbould, sits at the heart. He is a young boy who, as a result of the financial hardship his family faces, is forced to grow up fast. It’s a scenario many have had to deal with but not one that’s often played out on screen. If you were to question how young Gyllenhaal and Mulligan must have been to have a fourteen-year-old, you wouldn’t be the only one. This is intentional. They have not grown-up yet and therefore Joe is given equal responsibility within the family and equal weight within the story.
Dano does a fantastic job in making sure that, in the tight 100 minute runtime, every member of the family is given their due. There are moments where we cut between each of their daily routines and in doing so we are able to see who they are as a collective unit and as individuals. It adds depth. The individual scenes do the heavy lifting and then everyone is able to bring their own stories to the dinner table.
At a time when the one-percent rule, Wildlife screams its way into existence; reminding us that we all struggle and that the world is not perfect. This is not a film for the elite, it is for the rest of us. We deserve it.
