In the Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, Lorelei decides to ‘do Wild’ as a voyage of self-discovery. The perpetual question she is confronted with is ‘book or film’? It speaks to how pervasive the fantasy of going off grid is throughout pop culture.
In Robin Wright’s directorial debut, she examines grief through the lens of self-imposed isolation. Following an unspecified family tragedy, Edee (played by Wright) retreats from the bustle of Chicago to a remote mountain cabin. Shutting herself from the outside world, the unprepared Edee almost dies in the winter until she is discovered by local hunter Miguel (Demián Bichir).
To the film’s credit, it eschews the typical ‘two lost souls falling in love’ narrative that inevitably follows such an encounter. There are naturally shades of it, but the kindhearted Miguel is nothing less than genuine in the hands of Bichir. Here are a couple of people attempting to confront their own grief in different ways — one through isolation and the other via connection — and happening to find a convergence point. Or as Miguel succinctly puts it, “You were in my path.”
Beautifully shot — with the backdrop of Alberta, Canada provided lush mountains, rivers and treetops to ogle — the seasons melt into each other in Bobby Bukowski’s handsome photography. As Edee explores her surrounds, mysterious flashbacks/visions of a man and his boy hint at the unspeakable past.
Yet Wright seems so enamoured with the surroundings that she, like the character she plays, forgets about the outside world for a time. Once the intriguing first half gives way to a dramatic tonal shift, it’s all hunting montages, pretty landscapes and DIY farming for what feels like hours. To quote Edee, “This isn’t working.”
That said, Wright delivers a powerful performance at the heart of slender narrative. The term ‘raw’ gets bandied about too much, but Wright lets it all out on the screen. It’s just a shame that much of this is undercut by an emotionally manipulative denouement, one that compounds several dramatic turns into cookie cutter crises, as if checking off items on an invisible list.
There will be inevitable comparisons to the Oscar-winning Nomadland, or perhaps even Into the Wild. All of those films (and their print sources) examine individuals who have chosen to live their lives outside of the dominant paradigm and unapologetically follow that path. Wright’s thesis is a little less clear, and it’s impact will ultimately depend on how closely you relate to her journey.
2021 | USA | DIRECTOR: Robin Wright | WRITERS: Jesse Chatham, Erin Dignam | CAST: Robin Wright, Demián Bichir, Kim Dickens | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 89 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 29 April 2021 (AUS)
