Carey Mulligan always impresses. She gave the best performance I’ve seen on stage in Skylight in 2015. Earlier this year I was again astounded by her stage presence in the one woman show, Girls and Boys. It was an emotionally devastating theater experience, thanks to her command of the stage and of the language inflections. But despite being biased for her, I wasn’t ready for how blazing she comes out in Paul Dano’s Wildlife.
This is her shining moment. It’s her Blanche Dubois moment. Her Jeanette, a Montana housewife dealing with the repercussions of a crumbling marriage, is untethered yet Mulligan is in complete control. She holds the performance in her voice, as it trembles with emotion - hurt, confusion, anger, uncertainty - all is clear to the audience through the timber of her voice.
She has many bombastic scenes; screaming and fighting with her husband (Jake Gyllenhaal), drunkley dancing like a delirious Salome trying to seduce a rich older man (Bill Camp). However Mulligan is at her best in the quiet scenes when Jeanette is thinking about what she should do, or regretting what she has done while vacillating between despondency and determination. Her choices as an actor are as smart as Jeanette's are mystifying but just as unpredictable. She put it best herself when she described the character in a recent interview as "going off the rails while staying in tracks." Her performance is the reason to see the film.
Mulligan has had to defend her character during the film’s press tour. Jeanette’s downfall include some infidelity and a tragic meltdown, witnessed by her 14 year old son. Great stuff for an actress to work with but apparently also comes with audience derision. You’ve probably already of her measured smart response at a New York Film Festival screening to an audience member who expressed hatred for the character.
I was furious at another NYFF post screening Q and A when the male moderator and the male audience members he kept choosing for questions, ignored Mulligan in favor of heaping praise on Gyllenhaal for his embodiment of sensitive manhood. So much so that Gyllenhaal was embarrassed and tried to deflect by saying that movie belongs to Mulligan. It sure does! Carey was looking every inch the movie star in sparkly Valentino couture and had just rocked my world with her blistering performance, yet men couldn’t see her performance because her character is the dreaded “unlikeable.” So correct that, and go see her now.
Wildlife opens in New York and LA tomorrow October 19th, expanding elsewhere soon thereafter.