"Wildlife": a marriage craze with soft tones – Viennale 2018

Dano is himself an actor, known for his supporting roles in such films as "Little Miss Sunshine" (2006) and "Twelve Years a Slave" (2013). He wrote "Wildlife", his first film as a director, with his partner Zoe Kazan, who is also an actress. Actresses and actresses are said to give actors a lot of space in their first film from the director's office.

The forest fire

It's no different with "Wildlife". The story of the one-and-a-half-hour movie can be summed up in a few sentences: Jeannette and Jerry Brinson (Mulligan and Gyllenhaal) moved in 1960 with his 14-year-old son Joe (Oxenbould) to a rental house somewhere share in Montana. After two weeks, Jerry loses his job on a golf course.

Jeannette reacts initially with understanding, but as Jerry is more and more involved in her misfortune and then, against her will, involved in a dangerous fire extinguisher job in a huge forest fire that keeps him far from at home for months, she stays alone with Joe at home. , their marriage in question. Another man appears, much to Joe's chagrin. When Jerry returns, the inevitable escalation follows.

Show a lot where little is visible

The individual scenes are long and there is little to show for long periods: the cottage, the garden at the front, a dark suburban colony, well dressed suburbanites. The real story unfolds in "between": between the scenes that direct the plot, between the lines of dialogues, between family members.

The report to make this story visible attracts the family of the film without ever doing too much. Oxenbould's gaze, with which he looks at his parents when he talks to them: there is love to see, but also respect, almost fear – as it was. habit in the parent-child relationship, and worry about what is happening and worry so that everything goes well. Everyone can not put so much emotion and thought in one look: Oxenbould will still hear a lot.

Distrust and bad conscience

The same goes for Mulligan in the role of mother. She does not hide from her son that she meets another man. With a mixture of challenge and bad conscience, she seeks absolution in her actions and looks for her behavior that she herself does not seem to understand perfectly. Gyllenhaal, in turn, fights clumsily as a father to maintain his pride in unemployment. Googly eyes, he looks at his own family as he looks for his place, what he lost.

The movie is slow for today's viewing habits. You must be interested in the high levels of interpersonal relationships and not find it boring from time to time, despite the staggering performance of the actors. Director Deno is interested in that – he wants to do more movies about dysfunctional families. You can be curious.