One star. Rated R, for sexuality and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang
Some films are so relentlessly
unpleasant, that it’s impossible to imagine what the folks involved were
thinking.
Take Wilson. (Please.)
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| Determined to compensate for 17 years of absent fatherhood, Wilson (Woody Harrelson) takes ex-wife Pippi (Laura Dern, right) and their adopted-out daughter Claire (Isabella Amara) to a kiddyland play-park. Interesting choice. |
Is it supposed to be
enlightening? Instructive? Philosophical? Emblematic of the human condition? A
statement of where we are, at this point in time?
Director Craig Johnson and
scripter Daniel Clowes must’ve had something
high-falutin’ in mind, because the result certainly isn’t anything as basic as
entertaining. Or amusing. Or witty, poignant, endearing or any of scores of
other experiences we anticipate, when plonking down hard-earned cash for a
night at the movies.
Ironically, I suspect that
Johnson and Clowes genuinely believe that what they’ve wrought is a little bit
of all those things.
Hardly. In baseball terms, Wilson is a whiffout. It’s clumsy,
tedious and deadly-dull boring, with generous dollops of misanthropy, casual
cruelty and contrived so-called tragedy. It is also interminable.
Honestly, I thought it’d never
end. Entire generations were born, matured and died, during the time it took to
endure this sad excuse for a movie.
Building a storyline around a
thoroughly obnoxious curmudgeon is a delicate and precise art: On some level,
we’ve gotta love the guy, or at least be amused by his antics. It’s not just a
matter of screenplay finesse; the actor in question must be endearing, in spite
of himself. Think Billy Bob Thornton, in Bad
Santa; or Bill Murray, in St. Vincent.
We forgive their mean-spirited behavior, because they’re so darn ... well ... irresistible.
Woody Harrelson’s Wilson is
resistible. He’s boorish, confrontational, obnoxious, profane and spiteful, and
never in a good way. He’s a neurotic loner with a deeply rooted loathing of
civilized society, and a malicious craving to ruin everybody else’s day. He’s
the sort of guy who, upon boarding a bus with only one other passenger, will
sit right next to that innocent victim, just to annoy her.
And then, when said individual
politely requests some space, Wilson reacts in high dudgeon, unable to believe the degree to which he has just
been offended.
Five minutes with this guy, and
we’re desperately scanning for the theater exits.
Harrelson always has had a talent
for odious characters, so I suppose he deserves credit for making Wilson so
thoroughly contemptible. But it could be argued — can be argued — that he succeeds too well, which is where Johnson fell down on the job. Stories of
this nature inevitably are about redemption, with the grouchy protagonist
finally achieving some sort of life-changing epiphany.
But no third-act revelation could
compensate for spending 94 minutes with this guy.
And that’s merely the tip of the
iceberg. Johnson and Clowes repeatedly indulge in unwarranted or blatantly
false emotional contrivance. Moments after we’ve met Wilson, hating him
already, he’s hit with the news that his father is at death’s door, due to
stage-four cancer. Cue a typical hospital bedside scene, where Harrelson
suddenly attempts to engender pity with one of those
Why-couldn’t-you-have-said-you-loved-me
moments.
Say what?
Harrelson doesn’t even come close
to selling that scene. Heck, nobody could; we don’t know the guy yet, or the
prior dynamic with his father. Nor will we.
It’s just the first of many, many
equally clumsy encounters.
Wilson lives alone in an
apartment he has occupied for years, surrounded by a hoarder’s stacks of books
and magazines, along with dozens of crates of beer cans, bottle caps,
dilapidated board games and all manner of other junk. We’ve no idea how he buys
food or pays the rent; the notion of this guy having a job is inconceivable.
He mocks and taunts passersby
while walking his dog — his only companion — and routinely abuses the few
people willing to tolerate him. That number is dwindling: Sole friend Robert
(Brent Gelman) and his wife Jodie (Mary Lynn Rajskub) announce that they’re
moving to St. Louis, which probably isn’t far enough.
With nobody left to hang out with
— because, you see, despite his myriad failings, Wilson is lonely, donchaknow — he decides to look up the ex-wife, Pippi
(Laura Dern), who rancorously divorced him 17 years ago, when she got pregnant
and had an abortion. They’re a match made in heaven, both blessed with
hot-flash tempers and a tendency to use F-bombs as adjectives.
Pippi is just getting her life
back together, after a decade of drinking, drugs and prostitution. No matter:
Wilson genuinely, earnestly sees nothing but an angel, when he looks into her
eyes. That said, he double-takes when Pippi confesses that, well, she didn’t
have an abortion after all. She gave birth to a baby girl, who subsequently was
adopted.
One illegal search later, Wilson
and Pippi are armed with the knowledge that their love child has blossomed into
17-year-old Claire (Isabella Amara), a high school misfit who isn’t navigating
the social scene very well. They stalk her, introduce themselves, and — because
this is a movie, and because Claire also is lonely — establish an uneasy
relationship. Of sorts. Kinda.
Alas, the road to “family
harmony” is paved with razor blades, and you can be certain of one thing in
this misbegotten scenario: Nothing will work out right. Even so, the degree to
which it subsequently works out wrong
is quite breathtaking.
Clowes is running true to form.
He’s best known as the cartoonist and graphic novelist who drew notice with the
1989-04 run of Eightball, which he
famously described as “an orgy of spite, vengeance, hopelessness, despair and
sexual perversion.” He’s an acquired taste, to say the least, but his work is
wildly popular in certain circles, and has won numerous awards.
He collaborated with director
Terry Zwigoff on big-screen adaptations of Ghost
World and Art School Confidential,
both of which centered around loners and social outcasts, most of whom treat
each other — and everybody else — rather badly. Appreciating Clowes requires
the ability to derive humor from pain; that, too, is a delicate balancing act.
Wilson is the third feature film adapted from one
of Clowes’ graphic novels, and — I’m willing to bet — destined to be the least
successful. The emotions here are too unnatural and irrational: blatant
manipulation in service of damaged characters and Clowes’ belligerently hostile
view of the universe.
He seems a good fit with Johnson,
whose previous credits include the equally unpalatable True Adolescents and The
Skeleton Twins.
Dern does her best with a part
that veers wildly in all sorts of directions, few of which are comprehensible.
Pippi craves affection and understanding even more deeply than Wilson, so in
that sense she’s sympathetic, but Dern is too erratic; as with most of the
characters in this story, she’s more a construct than a credible human being.
Claire seems like a nice enough
young woman, if one uncertain of her destiny, but script contrivances prevent
Amara from making much of an impression.
The bright spot is Judy Greer, as
this saga’s sole truly gentle character: Shelly, the dog sitter who also
functions as Wilson’s sympathetic confidante. Greer alone saves this film from
total turkeydom; she’s warm and genuine,
unlike anybody else in this mess.
The film is bookended by Wilson’s
ludicrously self-serving voice-over narration, which initially informs us of
the caustic bile about to spew forth, and — as the film (thank God) concludes —
attempts to justify what we’ve just endured. The effort fails.
I can’t help feeling that Johnson
and Clowes deliberately made this film as repugnant as possible, as some sort
of challenge, and that they’ll giggle over every patron suckered into spending
money to endure it.
Nice job, guys. Not.
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