Wildcat

Wildcat is the story of Flannery O'Connor (Maya Hawke), a Southern Catholic writer who lived from 1925 to 1964 and was disabled by Lupus in her later years. Although the movie shows O'Connor traveling to Iowa and New York to further her writing career, most of the plot takes place in her family's home as she types away on multiple drafts of her stories while the disease takes its toll. O'Connor is shown as socially awkward, and her mother and others cannot comprehend the motivations for her fiction. Possessing a strong faith, she explores the bizarre and twisted ways in which people can be affected by religion.

Interspersed with slow-moving scenes of O'Connor's life (non-chronological) are scenes from her fiction, acted out by the same cast of characters. Where the real segues into the fictional is sometimes hard to discern. The fictional scenes provide some insight into O'Connor's mindset but, having not read her writing in many years, I was hoping for even more insight into the influences on her writing (I probably hoped for too much). The movie is a portrait of a troubled soul that will interest her devoted readers and perhaps entice others to sample her offbeat fiction.

I struggled to understand Maya Hawke who croaks and whispers in a thickly-accented incoherent drawl. Subtitles reveal a clunky yet occassionally interesting script full of overwrought, flowery dialogue that often shines. Unfortunately, it's a story without much impact, especially if you're unfamiliar with O'Connor (as I am).

The plot is fragmented into non-linear episodes that highlight her various struggles; professional, personal, historical and theological. But they never really get beyond surface level.

Ethan Hawke should be commended for his blend of dialogue, music and imagery to create a hypnotic feel. It's very heavy on post-production filters, sadly, which smothers the otherwise decent photography.

I found it slow, over-cooked and bland. But it's a 'feel' movie and if you like the vibes of the trailer, it's basically two hours of that.

It appears that a lot of people have left poor ratings for this film without leaving a review to say why. Perhaps they are encountering Flannery for the first time and the shock was too much. I saw this film last night and thought it was wonderful. The script artfully mixes together scenes from what is known of Flannery's life, entries from her prayer journal, and brief reenactments of five of her stories (The Life You Save May Be Your Own, Revelation, Parker's Back, Everything That Rises Must Converge, and Good Country People). Bravo to Maya Hawke, she is a tour de force, appearing as Flannery and in all five of the stories. Strong support from Laura Linney and the rest of the cast. I'm looking forward to a re-watching sometime, hoping to catch things I missed.

A weird movie based on the work ok some author only intelectual people know, there is a lot of cameos by friends of the director Ethan Hawke, his daughter is good in this, she is clearly not a nepobaby like others, she knows how to act, the rest of cameos are fine, especially Neeson and Zach, overall it's just a poetic and interesting movie, its hard to follow, but its kinda worth watching it some raining sunday after exercising. Its the type of movie to watch while you gaming

There is a couple of boring religious stuff, other than that it's a good time in my books. Another decent Hawke directional movie.

WILDCAT, based on the stories of Flannery O'Connor, was even worse than my worst fears! Flannery O'Connor is one of my favorite writers, so I was thrilled that somebody was making a movie of her short stories. Previous attempts to film her work have yielded mixed results. (The best was WISE BLOOD with Brad Dourif and Harry Dean Stanton; most notorious was the TV version of "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" with Gene Kelly and a tacked-on happy ending.) This one takes on O'Connor's life after she has been diagnosed with Lupus (the disease that killed her father) and is frantically trying to write her very best before her death at age 39. Interspersed with the biographical episodes are vignettes from some of her short stories, which make no sense when removed from their contexts. It's an incomprehensible mess (starting with the title-there are no wildcats in O'Connor's work and she, a fanatical Catholic girl, could hardly be called one), with the same actors portraying real people Flannery knew and the characters she based on them. If you are not familiar with O'Connor and her work, I doubt this will make any sense at all. Top it off with the cringeworthy attempts at Southern accents by most of the actors. I enjoyed a few moments of it, but that's primarily because I had a frame of reference. Flannery's fans tend to be very possessive of her. I am no exception. I thought this was heartbreakingly bad.