SLIFF 2014 Review – WILDLIKE

Review by Dana Jung

WILDLIKE screens at 5:00pm Saturday, November 22nd at the Tivoli Theatre as part of the St. Louis International Film Festival. Ticket information can be found HERE

The “fish out of water” story is nothing new. Even in as remote a location as Alaska, there have been numerous films and TV shows going back to at least NORTHERN EXPOSURE (and its predecessor TWIN PEAKS) that chronicle the effects of living in remote isolation on a person used to the big city. But no project in recent memory has utilized the extreme open spaces and majestic grandeur of the Alaskan outback in such a beautiful way as the new film WILDLIKE.

Mackenzie (Ella Purnell) is a troubled teenage girl who is shipped off to live with her uncle in Alaska. With no father and a mother who is undergoing treatments for some never-explained illness, Mackenzie is struggling, as all teens do, to find her identity. But the added complications of being uprooted at a vulnerable age are only the tip of the iceberg, for Mackenzie’s seemingly friendly uncle turns out to be an abuser, so Mackenzie seizes the first opportunity to run away, into the Alaskan countryside, with nothing but a small backpack and a little cash, and her wits.

Director Frank Hall Green expertly uses the breathtaking visuals of the Alaskan wilderness as a metaphor for the cold isolation that Mackenzie feels. How often, as teens, has one felt that they were all alone in the world? This magnificent backdrop only accentuates the girl’s feelings of withdrawal from human contact, not even to able to connect with a boy her own age without resorting to seduction. Things begin to change for Mackenzie, however, when she meets Bart (Bruce Greenwood), a widower with his own set of personal issues. After several stops and starts, a relationship slowly begins to develop between the lost teen and the man dealing with loss.
Greenwood has always been a strong and versatile actor capable of playing anything from villains to Starfleet captains to JFK. In WILDLIKE, Greenwood gives one of his best performances as the gruff but perceptive Bart. The way in which he chokes back emotion as he tells Mackenzie about his wife provides the perfect touching counterpart to the sadness in the young girl. Purnell (last seen as a young Angelina Jolie in MALEFICENT) is ideally cast as Mackenzie. With her heavy eye makeup and perpetually dour expression, she is in many ways the typical surly teenager. It is Purnell’s nuanced performance that gives the portrayal the depth needed to sympathize with and root for her from beginning to end. Whether nervously chewing on her shirt sleeve, or letting happiness creep across her face at the prospect of a better future, Purnell makes MacKenzie such a memorable character that you only wish good things for her.