Written By: Paul Danno & Zoe Kazan

Directed By: Paul Danno

Paul Danno is perhaps best known for playing Brian Wilson in 2014’s Love and Mercy, or for his brilliant comic turn as a member of the Animal Liberation Front in Jon Ronson’s Okja. Wildlife is his first directorial feature and he takes to the task with a delicate touch. Wildlife, based on a novel by Richard Ford, is the story of a marriage and family in disintegration, set amongst a wonderfully realised late 50’s time period.

The story is told from the perspective of 14 year-old Joe, the subtle but interesting Ed Oxenbould, as his Mother and Father’s relationship crumples. Newly moved to Montana, Joe and his parents Jerry and Jean are presented in the film’s opening sequence as the textbook Nuclear family of mid-century America. We see shots of Jake Gyllenhaal’s Jerry working hard at his grounds man job, while Jean, bought to life by the staggering Carey Mulligan, is an apron-clad hero of the family home.

This tranquillity is brought down by Jerry being fired at the Golf club he works and then, more importantly, turning down the chance to re-join the company when they offer him his job back. This sends Jerry spiralling into a depressed slump, which he uses an excuse to drink excessively; but crucially it allows Jean to re-enter the workplace, having left her previous job as a teacher to become a full-time housewife. From the outset, Danno and fellow screenwriter and actor Zoe Kazan, seek to show how Jeanette is pummelled by the gender boundaries of 50’s America. Mulligan plays the opening act with a furious resignation, she might love her son but she detests the fact her life is defined by groceries and cleaning. Mulligan is sublime in the role as Jean, bringing a ferocious intelligence mixed with an often devastating emotional veracity.

Jerry decides that he wants to leave Joe and Jean to go and help with the fight against a wildfire that is ravaging a forest in Montana. Jerry’s life seems defined by failure; he bounces from one dead-end job to another and is locked into the proscribed bread-winner role. He is much more emotional than his society allows him to be, saying to his son as he departs and kisses him, ‘men are allowed to love each other too.’

This decision leaves Joe and Jean alone in the house together and it exposes the bizarre intimacy at the heart of their relationship. Jean treats Joe as a mixture of best friend, therapist and son. She tells him about her sex life (or lack thereof), her deepening existential angst at the state of her life and the insecurities that come with that. Joe views all this with a bemused, often weirded out confusion. Danno has clearly instructed Oxenbould to play Joe to be as reserved as possible, his face is often impassive and his dialogue trimmed down to ‘Yes, sir,’ ‘No, Ma’am’ or ‘Is everything going to be okay?’ This allows the film to focus on Jean and how she responds to Jerry’s decision to leave the family for a low-paid, extremely dangerous job. The gap that Jerry leaves gives Jean a freedom she hasn’t really had since she gave birth to Joe. Gone are the aprons and the drab, plain dresses and she starts experimenting with colours and styles. Her anger at Jerry is clear but at some level she is glad when he leaves, as it finally allows the implicit oppression of her life to start cracking. This freedom brings with it a brutal new reality for Joe, as he witnesses first-hand the extent to which his mother will push this new life.

This is a very still film. The camera is often static, barely moving for the length of a scene. Often, a character will exit the frame and continue talking off-screen and the camera will be unrelenting in its motionless. The film is almost the anti-Birdman; it places the actors in front of the screen and lets them go. It also very small in terms of locations, existing mainly in the family home and the various work places which create a localised, intimate feel. The only time we see a true wide-shot is when Jean and Joe take a drive to see the wildfires Joe has left them to try to fight. The film itself has a wonderfully luxurious feel thanks to the work of cinematographer Diego Garcia and production designer Akin McKenzie. Danno and Kazan’s script is tight and held together by an admirable realism in terms of character and setting. Although, the presentation of time within the film is far from perfect and there are no indicators of over how many days/weeks/months the narrative lasts.

During a particularly ruthless parental argument, Jerry asks Joe his opinion and Jean spits, ‘Don’t ask him. He’s too young to know what is and what isn’t.’ This is one of the few times in the film in which Jean is dead wrong. Danno and Kazan use the small story of a family in crisis as a way of showing the damage societies defined by gender has on individuals. In a society in which emotions are regulated and gender roles codified, it is the adults who are truly unaware of how to feel or act.

8.5/10