Summary
Molly Shannon takes on the role of famed poet and reinvents her in the public’s imagination in this comedic romp that also contains a surprising amount of emotion.
The premise of WILD NIGHTS WITH EMILY reads a bit like an SNL skit. A comedic romp about America’s favourite recluse, spinster poet Emily Dickinson. Add in the fact that it stars Molly Shannon and the comparison becomes even more appropriate. Yet there’s something more to this film. It doesn’t feel like a one joke sketch stretched far too thin over its runtime. It’s entertaining, engaging, and even moving for the entire duration.
Perhaps that’s because this isn’t a parody. No one here is making fun of Emily Dickinson. She’s not the joke, although she can certainly deliver a good one, and often does here. She and her work are treated with a surprising degree of respect in this film, as is her relationship with Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson (Susan Ziegler), Emily’s lifelong friend (and, the film suggests, lover) who later become her sister-in-law. Even more so than her writing, this is the focus of the film.
The movie traces the decades-long romantic relationship between Emily and Sarah, beginning in their youth (where they’re played with charm by counterparts Dana Melanie and Sasha Frolova). Although their romance is certainly filled with moments occasionally played for laughs, it’s very well developed and genuinely sweet. The script takes great care to show the attraction and love they shared, whether in their first kiss as girls or as years later they lay in bed talking together like an old married couple, venting their frustrations to one another. Susan’s influence on Emily’s work as both a muse and reader is clear.
The chemistry between Shannon and Ziegler is terrific. They bounce perfectly off one another, and make these characters distinctly their own. In fact, the entire cast and script brilliantly and hilariously meld the period era setting with modern humor and sensibilities. Comparisons to last year’s A Quiet Passion are bound to be made. Yet ths is a different, more modern and lighter interpretation of the poet’s life. Shannon isn’t afraid to go deep: the sequences when she performs her poetry directly to the camera are deeply emotional and compelling.
The film reveals that Emily Dickinson finally had her work published after her death and at last became a respected part of the literary canon. Through the efforts of her sister Lavina (Jackie Monahan) and Mabel Loomis Todd, her brother’s mistress (scene stealer Amy Seimetz), her posthumous recognition came at a cost. Her identity and relationships were, as the film shows in a brilliant and emotional ending, quite literally erased.
Emily Dickinson was cast in the public’s imagination as an antisocial, reclusive figure who never left her bedroom and didn’t show her work to anyone, a myth that persists to this day. While she never married and did largely remain at home, she also had a lot of love in her life. It came from siblings, her nieces and nephews, gardening, and her work, from which she didn’t hide away. She attempted to have her work published many times, only for it to be ignored. She was constantly sharing it with Susan, eager for feedback and reassurance.
Even though it comes in the form of a comedy, writer-director Madeleine Olnek does something quite important with this work: she reclaims Emily’s identity, and very smartly, frequently using Dickinson’s own words from both poems and letters to do so. Viewers will come away entertained and amused, but also with a deeper, more empathetic understanding of Emily.
2017 | US | DIRECTOR: Madeleine Olnek | WRITERS: Madeleine Olnek | CAST: Molly Shannon, Amy Seimetz, Susan Ziegler, Brett Gelman | DISTRIBUTOR: Salem Street Entertainment, Outfest Los Angeles | RUNNING TIME: 84 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 21 July 2018 (Outfest LA)
