"Wander Darkly" -- Movie Review

 

This week, Film at Lincoln Center streamed a preview of the new drama from Lionsgate, “Wander Darkly”, starring Sienna Miller and written & directed by Tara Miele. 

Synopsis

When new parents experience a trauma, can their relationship survive the ensuing tension?

Story

Adrienne and Matteo (Miller and Diego Luna) have a joyous life-altering event when their daughter is born.  In a long-term relationship, they are unmarried – yet they purchased a house together with the plan of starting a family at some point in the future.  Now that the baby is here, however, the stress of parenthood along with the financial obligations of paying off a mortgage each month is beginning to take its toll on their relationship.  They find themselves constantly fighting, sniping and making unfounded accusations against the other.  Feeling cooped-up alone in their house with the baby, they decide that the best thing for their mental health is a bit of self-care:  they hire a babysitter and have a date night.

Unfortunately, their night out is a disaster.  Socializing only serves to heighten the strain between them.  Once their evening draws to a close, they drive home and almost immediately proceed to argue with each other.  During their quarreling, they are the victims of a horrific automobile accident in which both of them are seriously injured and are taken to the hospital.  Following a near-death experience, Adrienne eventually pulls through – but her recovery from this traumatic event is prolonged when she experiences nightmares, flashbacks and panic attacks.  Eventually, Matteo turns up; although she is glad to see him, it doesn’t take long before they pick up where they left off with their fighting.

In order to help out with things, Adrienne’s parents move in.  This turns out to be something of a mixed blessing because the mother starts going after Matteo as well.  Adrienne becomes concerned that Matteo might leave her because he’s feeling as though they are ganging-up on him.  She doesn’t want to drive her partner away, but at the same time, she is finding it increasingly difficult to live with him.  After all of the bitterness and recrimination, will the two be able to find a way to remain together for the sake of their daughter?    

Review

“Wander Darkly” is one of the more aptly-titled movies you’ll see.  Both the characters and the audience wind up having a feeling as though they are wandering through a forebodingly doleful landscape.  Whether or not you will appreciate “Wander Darkly” depends on how well you might deal with feeling disoriented throughout the entire experience.  If you liked something such as “The Sixth Sense”, then there’s probably a reasonably good chance you’ll enjoy “Wander Darkly” because both are unsettling and have a surprise twist in the third act. 

Both Miller and her co-star Diego Luna give excellent performances, especially when you take into consideration the time-shifting nature of the script.  However, it’s the script itself that provides the challenge for audiences.  The story can come off as confusing and convoluted to the point that it can appear hard to follow.  One might be excused for feeling a bit off-balance throughout much of the film; it may make you want to simply give up on the whole thing after a while.  Additionally, while there are interesting scenes, you never get a sense of dramatic narrative propelling the story forward.  In this case, it may feel more like “Meander Starkly” rather than “Wander Darkly”.

Following the stream, there was an interview with Tara Miele and Sienna Miller conducted via Zoom.  Miele said that the shoot was only 24 days because they were working on a very small budget; there was a scene where one of the characters gets out of a car in the middle of a busy street and that was one of the more challenging parts of the shoot.  Due to the budget, they had only 90 seconds to get the shot because they couldn’t afford to do a total lockdown of the entire street.  The idea for the movie came from Miele’s personal experience.  Seven years ago, she and her husband were in a serious car crash; in the aftermath, she was concerned for her two daughters (at the time of the accident, one was only six months old and the other 14 years).      

 

"Let Him Go" -- Movie Review

 

 

This week, Film At Lincoln Center held an advance screening of the new Focus Features crime drama, “Let Him Go”, starring Kevin Costner and Diane Lane.

Synopsis

When a treacherous family absconds with a couple’s grandson, can they safely rescue him?

Story

After their adult son’s accidental death, Margaret and George Blackledge (Lane & Costner) go into an understandably prolonged period of mourning.  Their now-widowed daughter-in-law Lorna (Kayli Carter) continues to live with them on their Montana ranch with her baby son, Jimmy.  Eventually, Lorna meets and marries a mysterious stranger named Donnie Weboy (Will Brittain).  Donnie moves them into an apartment where Margaret comes to find out that he is abusive of both his new wife and her grandson. 

One day, Margaret heads over to the apartment to visit her grandson, only to learn that the family has abruptly moved out.  Getting a tip that Donnie’s family is located in North Dakota, Margaret and George, a retired law enforcement professional, pack up their station wagon and head out to locate The Weboys.  As they gradually hone in on the family, Margaret and George slowly deduce that The Weboys are rather notorious in this state; this only causes their anxiety to heighten over concern for the welfare of their grandson.

Upon finally tracking down The Weboy clan, Margaret and George find them to be a creepy and dangerous tribe.  Although they have welcomed little Jimmy into their family, Margaret and George believe that their grandson will not be well-treated there.  Secretively, they meet with Lorna to plot how to get her and Jimmy back to their home in Montana.  Plans go awry when The Weboys get wind of the plan and torture The Blackledges, causing George to be hospitalized.  It becomes quickly evident that local law enforcement won’t be terribly helpful here because they too are afraid of The Weboys.  Determined to save their grandson, can Margaret and George get the boy out of their clutches?   

Review

“Let Him Go” tries to be something of a combination between a family drama and a crime drama; its success as a crime drama comes only in the third act of the movie which succeeds in a tremendous degree of building tension.  It’s self-sabotaged in the second act, which plods along at a snail’s pace.  The film comes in at just under two hours, but would have been greatly helped by some editing in that second act.  Normally, the second act is supposed to be about, “What are the bad guys doing?”.  Instead, the second act of “Let Him Go” asks the question, “What are the good guys doing?”, which is much less interesting. 

The long-standing rule in movies is “if you show a gun in the first act, you had better use it by the third act”.  “Let Him Go” certainly adheres to this rule, in spades.  (And apropos of absolutely nothing, one might expect that there were not too many creative brain cells burned coming up with that title)  What may begin as an almost contemplative, genteel film turns out to stir up a great deal of blood lust by the end; given how “Let Him Go” was set up, you don’t see the mayhem of its end coming – which, by the way, is not necessarily a criticism.  It’s just that the motion picture could have capitalized on that a bit more.

Following the screening, there was a Zoom interview with the film’s writer-director Thomas Bezucha.  “Let Him Go” was based on a novel by Larry Watson; Bezucha said that he found a copy of the book at a local Barnes & Noble book store in Manhattan; being somewhat familiar with the author’s work, he decided to take a chance on the book and felt it would make a good movie.  He acknowledged one of the observations by others, which is that his motion picture is somewhat reminiscent of the John Ford classic, “The Searchers”, to which he gave a bit of a homage in one scene.  Although the story takes place in Montana and North Dakota in the early 1960’s, it was actually shot in Calgary, Canada due to the tax breaks they received.