Wildlife
Wildlife
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1h 45m
Directed by Paul Dano • 2018 • United States
Starring Carey Mulligan, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ed Oxenbould
The directorial debut of actor Paul Dano reveals a filmmaking talent of remarkable intelligence and restraint. Adapted by Dano and Zoe Kazan from the novel by Richard Ford, this meticulously crafted portrait of the American nuclear family in crisis charts the rift that forms within a 1960s Montana household when the father and breadwinner (Jake Gyllenhaal) abruptly departs to fight the forest fires raging nearby, leaving his restless wife (Carey Mulligan, in a performance of fearless emotional honesty) and teenage son (Ed Oxenbould) to pick up the pieces. A deeply human look at a woman’s wayward journey toward self-fulfillment in the pre-women’s-liberation era and a sensitively observed, child’s-eye coming-of-age tale, WILDLIFE poignantly illuminates the complex ways in which families function, fall apart, and find their way.
Up Next in Wildlife
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WILDLIFE: From Script to Screen
In this program, created by the Criterion Collection in 2020, screenwriter-director Paul Dano, screenwriter Zoe Kazan, and actors Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal discuss adapting Richard Ford's novel for the screen and their collaborative filmmaking process.
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The World of WILDLIFE
In the following 2020 program, created by the Criterion Collection, screenwriter-director Paul Dano, cinematographer Diego Garcia, production designer Akin McKenzie, and costume designer Amanda Ford explain how the visual components of WILDLIFE inform its narrative.
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WILDLIFE Postproduction
The following conversation, recorded by the Criterion Collection in New York in 2019, features screenwriter-director Paul Dano, editor Matthew Hannam, and composer David Lang discussing the choices and changes they made to WILDLIFE in postproduction.
