Carey Mulligan Gives Career Best Performance in Wildlife

Sometimes when a family is broken, the repair takes a lifetime if at all.  Jeanette (Carey Mulligan) and Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) look like the perfect couple on the outside, but on the inside their relationship is a volcano waiting to erupt from all sides.  And erupt it does, when Jerry, after losing his job take work away for six months.  Jeanette, out of anger and spite, does whatever she deems necessary to keep a roof over her and Joes’ head.

Carey Mulligan is giving a career best performance very reminiscent to Jessica Lange in Blue Sky and we all know how that turned out for THAT Oscar winner.  The depths of emotional despair she exudes are dizzying, but spot on.  Jake Gyllenhaal is great at playing wounded men.  I guess you could say it is a lane he thoroughly thrives in spectacularly.  However, this film belongs to Ed Oxenbould (Joe) as the pre-teen forced to grow up, while trying to continue and education and be the ‘man of the house’ for his Mom. It’s hard to watch him go through it all, but Oxenbould make it bearable invoking empathy from the audience throughout.

Paul Dano’s directorial debut has traces of Tom Ford’s filmmaking style and is very impressive to say the least.  Can’t wait to see more from him in the future.

Wildlife is a euphemism for how wild life happens when the unexpected turns your seemingly normal existence upside down.  Produced by IFC films, Wildlife hit theaters on October 19th.