Movie Review--Wildling

"Do you want to hear a story?  Do you want me to tell you about the Wildling?  His teeth are long and sharp like this.  And so are his nails."

--Gabriel Hanson, Wildling

Within five minutes, Wildling sets up its central character Anna and the mystery of her identity as a child raised to fear a creature outside the attic she lives in.  Only minutes later, it shifts the story in a completely different direction and lets its originality and acting keep it moving forward.  As a drama first and foremost, the development of the story does crowd out heavy action sequences, but the other aspects, like the cast, are handled wonderfully.  Wildling reunites Liv Tyler and Brad Dourif, both Lord of the Rings cast members, even though they do not appear in any of the same scenes.  Their acting remains top notch, though!

Production Values

Much of Wildling focuses on mystery and interpersonal drama, which leaves only a handful of scenes with obvious practical effects that go beyond basic sets and locations.  There is a creature, and it is shown directly in the later half, but the close-up shots of the makeup and physical adornments mostly fit with the other visuals.  Only near the very end does some obvious CGI stick out.  As for the acting, Brad Dourif has a less malevolent role than he did as Grima Wormtongue and Chucky.  His performance calls for portraying conflicted motivations with sincerity.  As experienced movie viewers might expect, he pulls off what is necessary.  Liv Tyler plays Sheriff Ellen Cooper as a gentle, caring figure with a firmness she can muster when needed.  It is Isobel Powley, the actress behind Anna, who carries most of the story in spite of the two screen giants alongside her, that gets to appear in most scenes, and she carries the mantle with reserved energy that conveys Anna's confusion rather well.

Story

Some spoilers are below.

A young girl named Anna raised in an attic by Gabriel Hanson, so fortified that the door is locked and the knob electrified, hears tales of a "Wildling" from her guardian, who insists that the Wildling has killed all other children.  He begins giving her daily injections after she gets sick, never failing to keep her isolated even from the rest of the house.  Eventually, he kills himself, and Anna wakes up in a hospital without even knowing what her last name is supposed to be.  A local sheriff watches over her while waiting on her DNA results to be finalized.  Anna continues to eat meat to the exclusion of most other food and display curiosity, confusion, and determination in her introduction to modern civilization.

Intellectual Content

The conditions in which Anna is raised spur her to irrationally assume that Gabriel's claims about a Wildling and slaughter of children in the world outside their home are true, even though she can neither directly perceive the world outside or prove that her sensory perceptions reveal the external world as it is.  Once she lives with the sheriff after she is found, Ellen's claim that she has never seen a Wildling surprises Anna, who is still so concerned about the Wildling's existence that she prefers to sleep in a closet with no windows to feel safer.  Since Anna does not talk very often, Wildling does not have her talk about whatever she might think about epistemology, but the entire film is about the unraveling of a mystery foreshadowed early on.

Conclusion

Some of Liv Tyler's and Brad Dourif's work outside of Lord of the Rings and Child's Play goes without as much cultural recognition, and the enormous influence of the two franchises is plainly a factor.  This does not mean their other roles are not successes in their own right.  Among its other triumphs, like its gritty blend of cryptozoology and a modern setting, Wildling shows Liv Tyler and Brad Dourif in contexts very different than those in some of their biggest movies.  For this reason on its own, even someone without a particular interest in urban fantasy could derive plenty of enjoyment from watching a very personal approach to horror, one without jumpscares and a lack of subtlety.

Content:

 1.  Violence:  Someone tries to commit suicide with a revolver.  A creature attacks and kills several people.

 2.  Profanity:  "Fuck" and "shit" are heard.

 3.  Sexuality:  A character shows Anna videos of people having sex to help her understand how babies come into existence.  Sexual moaning is heard, but the laptop screen faces away from the camera.  A couple has sex without the camera showing most of their bodies.