First review
Maya Hawke takes on the role of an unconvincing Flannery O’Connor in an obvious failed drama that requires major creative fluctuations but mostly misses
Wed 13 September 2023 1.36pm BST
Flannery O’Connor populated her writings with smart, cynical Southerners who took a devilish delight in cutting through the false pieties of the post-Confederacy, although they were often caught off guard by their birth-inherited Christian gullibility – in other words, people who are very similar to O’Connor are you yourself.
Rustin Review – Colman Domingo shines in a civil rights biopic
Ethan Hawke’s latest directorial outing, “Wildcat,” in which he enlists his daughter Maya to portray the author as she returns to her Georgia home, fleshes out that connection with fictional flights that transport us into her short stories. In text-in-text renditions of “Good Country People” and “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” Maya Flannery stars as her surrogates, and each narrow-minded housewife becomes her crazy mother (Laura Linney). Although Ethan’s enthusiasm for a literary genius is clearly expressed, he ultimately does her prose a disservice by reinforcing a reductive misconception about scribes: that inspiration, the indescribable alchemy, that he pins to the recesses of the mind with his investigation Like, it’s about picking out the right elements from your immediate surroundings and simply incorporating them into the narrative. “The life you save could be your own,” Flannery murmurs as she passes a street sign bearing the phrase that would title one of her later compositions. As simple as that.
This is the best Dewey Cox moment in a biopic with a surprisingly obvious notion of creativity, highlighted in bold above with an introductory O’Connor quote about fiction as a leap into reality rather than an escape from it. Not that anyone would blame her for wanting to leave; Lupus, which soon left her unable to move her legs and required forearm crutches, also drove her back to the city she couldn’t wait to leave. She scowls despite the cheerful racism and harassing propriety of her mother, who doesn’t understand why her daughter can’t write something comforting and nice for a change. But she has no interest in sanitizing society, which we know because she says it directly to a workshop fool and gives her unsolicited advice that she would sell more copies if she added the N-word to “Negro.” mitigates. Ethan has clearly thought about what makes O’Connor a special character and creates the right contrast between her jaded dissatisfaction and her prevailing beliefs, always expressing them simply and clearly.
Perhaps the lack of subtlety is genetic, as Maya doesn’t fare much better in her simplistic efforts to isolate the nature of a woman reluctant to let anyone in. Worn out with unkempt hair, bookish glasses, dingy teeth and a rash covering her cheeks as if coated in feelings of homeliness – the falseness of which is further highlighted by Flannery’s more telegenic performance in the interludes in which she visualizes her words – she makes a pensive face like someone trying to win at charades. Her peachy accent comes and goes, and it’s a relief when she finally seems to give it up. (And no one should blame Ethan for playing favorites; his son Levon also appears in a cameo that allows him to show off his six-pack abs. Thanks, Dad!) Even the trusty Linney has been infected with the contagion, the hands in ham that ruled the set, differentiating the roles within their roles by playing each one as a different caricature of community theater. The indulgence of an actor and director towards his actors, combined with the parents’ fondness for their child, can be fatal.
The “Good Country People” segment taunts audiences with the far more attractive prospect that Ethan Hawke is simply adapting O’Connor’s corpus directly rather than dropping subtext into our laps. Maya does her best in the role of Hulga, a one-legged Nietzsche reader who thinks she’s smarter than the provincial idiots around her, until she’s shocked to discover that the apple-cheeked Bible salesman (Cooper Hoffman) she was trying to seduce is actually him one is a nihilistic, skilled thief. This fragment looks even better than the rest of the film, as cinematographer Steve Cosens has finally chosen a lens that isn’t distracting as it mimics mid-century stills.
Ethan Hawke has good taste, and his previous directorial ventures have borne this out, but the biopic’s great built-in trap – the psychologically easy connection between a character’s life and work – swallows up his palpable appreciation for O’Connor. The groan of a final shot ensures that we don’t have to worry about interpreting its symbolism, which was almost explicitly stated just moments before. O’Connor achieved the greatness that comes from a treatment like this, in part, through the skill with which she filtered out meaning and trusted that her readers would pick it up from between the lines of implication-laden stories. Ethan Hawke, for all his admiration for a deserving intellect, never gives his viewers a chance.
{{#Ticker}}
{{top left}}
{{bottom left}}
{{top right}}
{{bottom right}}
{{#goalExceededMarkerPercentage}}{{/goalExceededMarkerPercentage}}{{/ticker}}
{{Headline}}
{{#paragraphs}}
{{.}}
{{/paragraphs}}{{highlightedText}}
{{#choiceCards}}{{/choiceCards}}We will be in touch to remind you to contribute. Watch for a message in your inbox. If you have any questions about contributing, please contact us.