Directed By Ethan Hawke

Starring – Maya Hawke, Laura Linney, Phillip Ettinger

The Plot – Invites the audience to weave in and out of celebrated Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor’s mind as she ponders the great questions of her writing: Can scandalous art still serve God? In 1950, Flannery (Hawke) visits her mother Regina (Linney) in Georgia when she is diagnosed with lupus at twenty-four years old. Struggling with the same disease that took her father’s life when she was a child and desperate to make her mark as a great writer, this crisis pitches her imagination into a feverish exploration of belief. As she dives deeper into her craft, the lines between reality, imagination, and faith begin to blur, allowing Flannery to ultimately come to peace with her situation and heal a strained relationship with her mother.

This film is currently not rated

Wildcat – Official Trailer – Oscilloscope Laboratories HD (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

Even with much of Hawke’s script summoning some bizarrely distracting framing devices to the depths and accessibility of this biopic, ‘Wildcat’ is still an insightfully articulate look at the creative process of writers, with much of O’Connor’s depression for life transferring seamlessly to some fantastically imaginative sequences that Hawke wholeheartedly takes advantage of. This begins from the opening shot, as a fictional trailer for O’Connor’s work not only paints caustic wit for how Hollywood has unnaturally adapted many of writers’ work, but also sets a precedent for the rest of the film, which taps vividly into Flannery’s subconscious, with many of her stories being presented on-screen but played by those surrounding her in real life, which she often uses to exercise her aggressive feelings towards each of them. The scenes themselves are often full of much-appreciated and frequently effective black humor that the extended universe outside of them was most noticeably missing, with Flannery opening up to the audience therapeutically in ways that dissect everything from cultural racism to her own on-again off-again relationship with faith. While Hawke’s screenwriting is inconsistent at best, his direction as a visual storyteller is quite impactful, especially in painting Flannery’s world with a bleakly claustrophobic rendering that allows us to interpret much of the discontent that inspired her expressive writing. In particular, the stellar cinematography from Steve Cosens elicits a weathered texture and tight-knit framing that go a long way in conjuring the isolation factor of the protagonist, matched seamlessly by the impressive detail of production designs in everything from vintage wardrobes and set decorations, to transformative prosthetics, that subscribe to such a distinctly unique vision for this particular place in time, all with Hawke summoning a firm appreciation for the iconic writer that at least to him feels long overdue in the public eye. Hawke also assembles an ensemble unlike any other that he has had control over, with the leads attaining award-worthy merit in the thunderous duo of Maya Hawke and Laura Linney. In the grasp of her father’s control, Maya manages her single greatest performance of her brief-but-impactful career, balancing all of the angst, sardonicism and especially loneliness of Flannery that made her an outcast in the eyes of society, with a commitment to craft that effortlessly transforms her visually and emotionally into the writer before our very eyes. Linney brings all of the exaggerated energy that we’ve come to expect and appreciate from her decades dominating the screen, but inspired into what contemporarily would be defined as a Karen. Suspiciously and audaciously Linney chews the scenery of every room she chooses to forcefully grace, and with a role that could easily fall by the wayside of distracting in the arms of a weaker actress, Laura bestows both pride and humility to Regina in ways that make her feel like a living, breathing person, who most of the time serves as the undivided inspiration to Flannery’s constant grief. Hawke and Linney are joined by an array of extended cameos that prove Ethan wasn’t shy about opening his black book of connections, and while they’re all deduced to a single solitary scene, they each are given ample opportunity in presenting something memorable to the audience, which is far more than I can say about Jerry Seinfeld’s recent blunder, ‘Unfrosted’.

NEGATIVES

As previously mentioned, Hawke makes the conscientious decision to frame much of this story in the fictional world of Flannery’s writing, and while this is a uniquely original take among a sea of formulaic biopics, its dominance over the real world depiction makes this feel like two distinctly differing versions of the same story are often fighting for focus. What’s most disappointing here is that even after 100 minutes of screen time, I don’t feel like I learned anything additional about Flannery that I didn’t already know, and considering I’m a decent fan of her work at best, the decision to not delve deeper packs significant consequences to the integrity of the experience, with aspects of Flannery’s life popping up into frame clumsily to serve as a device to alleviate such little time spent developing this character. As a result of this creative disconnect, the pacing is unsurprisingly some of the most arduous that I have experienced this year, in which an aforementioned 100 minute movie feels like twice of that in a story where I didn’t have a chance to connect to the characters, nor interact with much of the surrounding world-building. This is felt most brashly during the film’s opening act, with an introduction to characters that not only makes it feel like the movie is already in progress, but also dejected in the ways its incapable of firmly defining its fantastically exaggerated approach to the many sequences, which require more time than necessary to capably piece together if you’re unaware of this aspect going into the film. On top of this, Hawke’s evidential appreciation for Flannery does overlook some key discrepancies in the air of depicting her as this fighter for civil rights, resulting in ‘Wildcat’ feeling like a puff piece of sorts to the talented writer, who wasn’t quite the morally sound person that the film depicts her as. Without getting into too many details that are littered quite literally across search engines everywhere, Flannery did fight for black rights, but refused to practice what she preached in the realities of her life, and while I can fully understand why Hawke chose not to include this aspect to a film that unanimously celebrates her in the most inspiring light, it points to many of my issues with contemporary biopics, in which they scrub or sanitize the truth in order to play to the audience, which feels a bit irresponsible on Ethan’s part. Finally, because so much of Flannery’s life in real time is abruptly shortchanged, with so much dependency being played to the imaginative world in the context of Flannery’s mind, the film does conjure stakes in the realities of her life threatening condition, but never with the kind of scintillating drama that makes it sizzle into a climax of any kind for the film. In fact, the film’s last imaginative sequence concludes and the resolution of the conflict between Flannery and Regina just kind of materializes out of thin air, with nothing in the way of change for the latter, nor sentimental meaning attained by the former, instead just conveniently tying things up in a manner that expresses we’re out of time, before making way for the conventional fade to black transition involving an epilogue in text that serves as the last gasp of hope and energy to such a shallow exploration.

OVERALL
“Wildcat” does take some refreshing steps of originality in the depths of its biopic storytelling, but the same unique framing device results in an abusive overindulgence in focus that constantly undercuts the exploration and thematic impulses of literary icon Flannery O’Connor. Between a dull and distracting execution, as well as an irresponsible social scrubbing, Hawke’s film amounts to nothing more than a pretentious pile-on for all of his merited efforts, in turn wasting away a career-defining turn for Maya Hawke who nearly saves it with her commitment to transformation.

My Grade: 5/10 or D