IFC Films has released the first trailer for Paul Dano’s directorial debut, the phenomenal family drama Wildlife. The film is based on Richard Ford’s novel of the same name, and Dano teamed up with Zoe Kazan to co-write the screenplay, who wrote and co-starred with Dano in the underrated Ruby Sparks. This is a very different kind of film, however, as it takes place in the 1960s and tells the story of a family falling apart from the point of view of a 14-year-old only child named Joe (Ed Oxenbould). Jake Gyllenhaal plays the father, who loses his job and decides to take a desperation gig fighting a wildfire, leaving his wife and son to fend for themselves. Carey Mulligan plays the matriarch, and she delivers quite possibly the best performance of her career as a woman trying to straddle the duties of motherhood with her own lost sense of purpose and direction.
I caught the film at Sundance and absolutely loved it (you can read my review here), and I’m hoping IFC Films can position this one correctly in this year’s awards race. Mulligan absolutely deserves recognition, as do Dano and Kazan for their pointed, elegant screenplay.
Check out the Wildlife trailer below. The film also stars Bill Camp and Zoe Margaret Colletti. Wildlife opens in theaters on October 19th.
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.
