Wildlife

Old-fashioned filmmaking with a progressive theme

She looked at me and the expression on her face was an expression of dislike, one I hadn't seen before but knew right away. Later I would see it turned toward other people. But the first time was looking at me and was because she believed she'd done all she could that was correct and the best thing, and it had only gotten her stuck with me. And I couldn't do anything that mattered. Though if I could I would've had my father be there, or Warren Miller, or somebody who had the right words that would take the place of hers, anybody she could speak to without just hearing her own voice in a room and having to go about the trouble of pretending she did not feel absolutely alone.

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Warning: Gyllenhaal is not the lead here

We see a boring family break apart from the perspective of the young boy. End of story. Safe to say there is no story, but there could easily have been one. Clearly the father is the most interesting character in "Wildlife". Being fired from a job that is not that good in the first place, he retains some of his pride and self-respect by refusing an offer to go back to that kind of work, an offer from the very same people who discarded him before. Instead he shows everybody and himself what it means to work hard, for little money, and do some good in the process. That is the story that should have been explored, not the son's take on things who, admittingly, acts admirable in the face of advers...

Ed Axenbould holds this together quite well as the teenage "Joe". His day to day life is thrown into turmoil when his father "Jerry" (Jake Gyllenhaal) gets laid off. Struggling to make ends meet with his wife "Jeanette" (Carey Mulligan) he decides to take a job some way away, a decision that leaves his wife feeling abandoned. The youngster must now cope with his mother's creative methods of dealing with the stresses and strains whilst reconciling his own feelings about both her and his absentee dad, of whom he is really fond. To be fair, not a great deal actually happens here - it is really just a delicately written observation on how relationships struggle once the family bedrock is compromised. Axenbould gives quite an assured performance...