Known for his incredible work in films like There Will Be Blood and Love & Mercy, actor Paul Dano is stepping behind the camera this year with the film Wildlife, coming to TIFF and the New York Film Festival this month after premiering at Sundance (where it was picked up for distribution by IFC). Co-written by Zoe Kazan (The Big Sick), Wildlife is based on a 1990 Richard Ford novel about the disintegration of a 1960’s couple’s marriage as they relocate to Montana and its impact on their teenage son. The couple, Jean and Jerry Brinson, are played by Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal, who have been lauded throughout the year for their work in the film, including in our review.
Mulligan, in particular, has received a tremendous amount of acclaim and the new trailer firmly places her Jean as the center of the story. We see her quarreling with Gyllenhaal’s Jerry, breaking down to her son (The Visit‘s Ed Oxenbould) and falling in love with an older man played by Bill Camp. Coming off the heels of a year-long festival run and picking up lots of critical raves along the way, Wildlife arrives in October and looks to be a harrowing yet hopeful look at what it means to find, and lose, love in the most unexpected places.
See the trailer below.
IFC Films presents WILDLIFE, the directorial debut of Paul Dano (THERE WILL BE BLOOD, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE), co-written along with Zoe Kazan (THE BIG SICK). Elegantly adapted from Richard Ford’s novel of the same name, Carey Mulligan (MUDBOUND, AN EDUCATION) delivers one of her finest performances to date as Jeanette, a complex woman whose self-determination and self-involvement disrupts the values and expectations of a 1960s nuclear family. Fourteen-year-old Joe played by newcomer Ed Oxenbould, is the only child of Jeanette (Mulligan) and Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal)—a housewife and a golf pro—in a small town in 1960s Montana. Nearby, an uncontrolled forest fire rages close to the Canadian border, and when Jerry loses his job—and his sense of purpose—he decides to join the cause of fighting the fire, leaving his wife and son to fend for themselves. Suddenly forced into the role of an adult, Joe witnesses his mother’s struggle as she tries to keep her head above water. With precise details and textures of its specific time and place, WILDLIFE commits to the viewpoint of a teenage boy observing the gradual dissolution of his parents’ marriage. The film premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and will also screened as the opening night film in La Semaine de la Critique at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.
Wildlife opens on October 19.