Do you remember the last time you were in such a good mood that you couldn’t wait until you saw a movie so sullen, so morose, that it would suck the life out of you? Me, neither. Wildlife is such a movie. Thirty minutes in, I begged it to put me out of my misery. First time director, Paul Dano, says he always wanted to make films about family. This was a poor family to choose.
Critics claim this is a breakout performance by Carey Mulligan. What? They’ve not seen An Education, nor Suffragette? Dano’s style is close-up after close-up, focusing over and over on the pain on the faces of this dysfunctional family. Rather than groundbreaking, I found it tedious. I give Wildlife 1.5 Gavels and it receives a 93% Rotten Tomatoes rating with a better than expected 73% Audience score.
![New UK Trailer & Poster For Paul Dano's 'Wildlife'](https://www.thehollywoodnews.com/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2018-09-24-at-15.47.21.png)
Plot
In 1960 Montana, Jerry loses his job at the golf course forcing wife, Jeanette, and son, Joe, to get part-time jobs. Jeanette, unhappy with the move to Montana, finally lands a job as a swimming instructor at the local YMCA. There, she meets Warren, a much older auto dealer. With no experience, Jerry leaves the family for months to fight forest fires for $1.00/ hour. Joe suffers as he watches his mother grow closer to Warren for both economic and emotional support. Even worse is the fighting that occurs when Jerry returns.
![Wildlife: Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal are excellent. But Ed Oxenbould is better](https://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.3689417.1541590097!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_620/image.jpg)
Actors
All three main actors drag you into this pit of depression with them; they are that good. It’s not their fault this is just a terrible story of hopelessness. Carey Mulligan ( Jeannette), Jake Gyllenhaal (Jerry), and Ed Oxenbould (Joe) deserve medals for surviving this shoot.
![Jake Gyllenhaal; still from the movie "Wildlife".](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/26/2b/d3/262bd37b696466195133a729dfcc8a3c.jpg)
Final Thoughts
With a cast of stars like Mulligan and Gyllenhaal, I wondered why this 2018 flick was on no one’s radar. It has no commercial value. A few weeks ago, a critic mentioned how wonderful it was to find a sleeper. Here, I found a snoozer.
The Seattle Times thinks it “a small-scale gem with a haunting final image, . . . the story of a 1960’s family quietly imploding.” On the other hand, The Chicago Reader writes “there’s no shaking the feeling that this sort of study of all-American repression has been done to death.” If you enjoy that “nostalgic” time when women were supposed to be housewives, Wildlife may be for you. As for me, I’ll pass.
![Wildlife review – Carey Mulligan saves this mannered domestic drama | Film | The Guardian](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b698dcc882d7092669b7fe8e9cd37f77959a10d7/107_5_1707_1024/master/1707.jpg?width=700&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=22d0378b48001e67ee7ca10708cd5adb)