A weak biopic on the author Flannery 0’Connor.
“Wildcat” is probably the weakest film I saw at the Boulder International Film Festival (BIFF) this year. My cousins (in their early 60s) and I agree that the acting is good, but the story is disorganized and artsy. Even they got a text from their friends that they walked out on it. Ethan Hawke directs his daughter Maya Hawke as Flannery O’Connor, who struggles to get her first book published.
About 40 minutes into the movie, my cousins were whispering that they didn’t understand the story, and I responded: “That makes two of is.” I acknowledge that “Wildcat” is about the author’s condition and how she uses her short stories as escapism from reality, but the movie doesn’t really deal with the true nature of it all.
This movie shows us various stories of characters played by both Flannery and her mother Regina (Laura Linney). Some of half them are mother-daughter stories, while in the real world Regina tries to get her daughter to see a doctor for her lupus disease. But the young writer is struggling to get her first novel published, while her mother comments; ‘I don’t understand why you can’t write about something that people would like to read.” At the very least, Flannery starts to use crutches and the priest (guest star Liam Neeson) tries to motivate her.
Here are some of the story segments, inspired by many of O’Connor’s short stories, with all the young heroines being played by Hawke and the older ones by Linney. I can’t name them all, but I can name a few just to give you an idea.
In one story, inspired by “The Life You Save Maybe Your Own,” Hawke plays a deaf-mute woman marrying a sleazy traveler (Steve Zahn), who abandons her at a diner. I think we can agree her mom was right about him being untrustworthy.
In another inspired by “Parker’s Back,” she meets a worldly tattooed man named O.E. Parker (Rafael Casal), who claims to be a saint, and marries her so they can have sex. She eventually abuses him, especially when he gets a tattoo of God on his back, and she’s unconvinced by its accuracy.
In another inspired by “Everything that Rises Must Converge, she plays a young woman who dresses up as a gangster, and whose Southern Belle mother gets beaten up by an African-American woman for giving her son a penny.
And inspired by “Good Country People,” she plays an atheist meeting a conman posing as a Bible salesman (Cooper Hoffman from “Licorice Pizza”), who takes her wooden leg as part of his collection of prosthetics.
The performances from Hawke and Linney are good, because of their own respective ways of merging with their characters, but “Wildcat” is meaningless. None of the short story segments have any direction or drive, and they’re often difficult to follow. And I took notes. At this very moment, I’m only seeing the acting as the bright spot of the film, but that isn’t enough.
Ethan Hawke did a fine job directing “Blaze” in 2018, because of how he was able to tell the true story of country singer Blaze Foley with a certain kind of ambiance and scope. I kind I described in my article as: “mostly pale with a splash of vivid warm; and it makes things feel riveting and country-like.” He can direct movies as well as act, but in “Wildcat,” he doesn’t present O’Connor’s story with the right ambiance. He misses the bookmark here.
In Select Theaters This Friday