by Chris Feil

Paul Dano’s directorial debut Wildlife is a period domestic drama with a fire in its gut. It’s the kind of piercing portrait of a family that makes you want to marinate in all of its surprising details just as you desperately want to escape its breathlessly realized pain.

Picturing an emotionally desolate suburban America of shitty lawns and ranch style homes, Dano strikes a balance between toughness and compassion, cruelty and honesty. It's as if its family was built on the fault line of two massive tectonic plates and no matter how violent the inevitable eruption that is to come, it might be sadly better that they be ripped apart. For everyone.