IFC Films has released a new Wildlife trailer. The directorial debut of Paul Dano, who co-wrote the script with Zoe Kazan, Wildlife is told from the perspective of Joe (Ed Oxenbould in a breakthrough performance), a teenager growing up in Montana in 1960 who witnesses the dissolution of his parents marriage when his father Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) abruptly leaves to fight a wildfire and leaves Joe’s mother, Jean (Carey Mulligan) to fend for herself.

I caught the film earlier this morning at a Press & Industry screening at TIFF, and it was a great way to start the festival. Dano shows he’s a skilled director who focuses just as much as what’s unseen and unsaid as he does on the foreground of a scene. Mulligan is also phenomenal, playing a rich, complex character, and if IFC makes a serious push, I can easily see her in the Best Actress Oscar race. If I have one issue with this trailer, it makes it seem like Jake Gyllenhaal is in this movie more than he is. Wildlife is really more about Jean and Joe than it is about Jerry. Click here for Adam Chitwood's full review from Sundance.

Check out the Wildlife trailer below. The film opens October 19th and also stars Bill Camp.

Here’s the official synopsis for Wildlife:

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 will be released by IFC Films on October 19, 2018.

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