Wildlife

While the pace is on the slow side for my preference, the superb acting from its leads and excellent cinematography more than made up for it. I would watch this again.

Paul Dano directs. Jake Gyllenhaal and Carrie Mulligan star. What could possibly go wrong. Well, it transpires lots. Dull, dull, dull. Slow moving. Glacial pace. Mulligan has an improbable liaison with a deeply unattractive second hand car dealer. Depressing stuff. I was glad when it was all over. Critics got this one badly wrong because they'd made their minds up it was 'great' before watching. It wasn't great. It was boring.

I love these actors but the movie is nothing short of terrible thanks to the director and the adaptation of the novel. Are these people supposed to be in their mid thirties or in their mid eighties? Because they have them sleep through life or pretend to be in their 80s, I was not sure. This movie has no energy. The characters don't seem to be alive. That being said there is not much action in the story either. Did the director think it could make a 15 minutes story into a 90 minutes movie by telling the actors to go super slow like a slow motion through life? Ridiculous.

Still can't get over the camera work in this movie on my second watch, incredible. Carey Mulligan is incredible in this movie, as well as Jake Gyllenhaal and Ed Oxenbould. The screenplay is so interesting, how someone can become someone so evil, just for the money and the regonition. I really dont know much else i can say about this movie, experience it for yourself and you will see what i mean by that.

Actor-turned-director Paul Dano's intimate indie is compelling of course but in a 100 minute runtime the film doesn't seem to have much of a third act or fitting resolution.

This is a slow family based drama film set in the 1960s. Its very slow, plot wise but it seems clear early on that there are things going on which we're not necessarily fully aware of and so that kept me curious enough to keep watching - that and the 1960s setting, the fashions etc. Its very much a film about marriage, family life and trust; with the focus being on the son and his mother. If it was set in modern day and about an average family, I maybe wouldn't be quite so interested to keep watching but I found it a fairly light and easy watch regardless. I liked the sense that the viewer was about to uncover something fairly big at any moment. I wasn't surprised the son was concerned and doubtful about things relating to his father. I could tell quite early on that this was a book adaptation and indeed it is, its based on the book by Richard Ford. The slow plot development was the main clue, I'd say. This isn't a film that will appeal to everyone (few do that) but its not bad as a film about a family struggling to do well for themselves and to stay properly together. I won't say anymore so as not to provide any spoilers. I'm not sure I'd especially recommend this as such unless your already keen to see it, as it is quite slow and may bore some people but for what it is, its not too bad.

A beautiful, subtly intimate drama set in small-town Montana and against the state's big skies. Carey Mulligan's is the outstanding, multi-layered performance, bringing real empathy to a character it would be easy to dislike by the film's end. Gyllenhall as her husband and Ed Oxenbould as their son deserve mention also - this is tangibly, relatably real family about which we feel almost guilty observing live through these traumas; but alongside that is the overwhelming feeling that this could be any of us - such is the empathy and insight of this film. The writing also aids this, with Paul Dano's debut direction - and the wonderful cinematography always giving us context, even allowing the sense of the grand scale of the natural environment weighing down, impinging, oppressing even in town. Mirroring and contributing to the family's issues, this a natural world of stark hostility, calling out from the film a nuanced discussion on masculinity and family relationships that lies at its heart; it is the natural world that both invites and disrupts this, and it's the subtly brilliant cinematography that makes it so powerful. An excellent, subtle and powerful drama that will linger long and likely repay repeated viewings.

While the three main actors give great performances, the script is poor, and all-in-all it's a very awkward hour-and-a-half. You are shown a perfectly functional family, and very quickly both parents start a cascade of completely irrational actions contradicting in every way the characters that were first presented. When the embarrassment has gone far enough, it ends on a deus-ex-machina happy ending as unsatisfying as the rest of the movie.

This is one of those films with a good cast that you're not sure what to expect and it turns out to be pretty special. Directed by Paul Dano, this tells the story of a very dysfunctional family seen through the eyes of a couples teenage son, played flawlessly by Ed Oxenbould, as he watches his once seemingly perfect family splinter after a series of events cause strife and unexpected reactions. Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan play the parents. Excellent performances keep you riveted to the screen.

Exceptionally depressing. Mulligan was excellent and Gyllenhal when he got angry really made the movie light up for a moment from the gloom. Otherwise, I'd like two hours of my life back.