While it’s pretty common to see parent-child team-ups in front of the lens (Laura and Bruce Dern, Donald and Kiefer Sutherland, Will and Jaden Smith — the list goes on), it’s far less common to see one directing the other. Best-case scenario you get John Huston directing his daughter Anjelica’s Oscar-winning performance in Prizzi’s Honor. Worst-case scenario you get Francis Ford Coppola bringing in his daughter Sofia for The Godfather Part III and earning a litany of bad reviews. (Fortunately the experience steered the younger Coppola more toward directing, which worked out.)
Unfortunately, in the case of Wildcat — co-written and directed by Ethan Hawke with his daughter Maya Hawke in the lead role — things don’t go quite as well as they did for the Hustons.
The film is an abstract biopic of writer Flannery O’Connor that incorporates adaptations of several of her great works, including short stories “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” and “Good Country People.” That in itself is not an easy feat. If you add the fact that O’Connor was a notoriously difficult character — prickly, rude and often in poor health — that makes it all an impossible task.
Maya stars as O’Connor as she struggles to get her first novel published and is eventually diagnosed with lupus. (The author became quite prolific but ultimately succumbed to the disease at the early age of 39.) Here we also witness her embittered relationship with her mother Regina (Laura Linney), whom O’Connor lived with and relied on for much of her life. Between scenes featuring O’Connor and her mother, we’re treated to vignettes based on the aforementioned stories, which showcase Hawke and Linney in multiple roles, along with a rousing ensemble that includes Vincent D’Onofrio, Steve Zahn, Rafael Casal, Cooper Hoffman, Liam Neeson (that one truly woke me up) and, naturally, Maya’s little brother Levon.
Though these vignettes are the more enthralling bits of the film, with O’Connor’s personal story paling in comparison, the truth is she was a brilliant, fascinating personality (with, yes, an indignant streak). It’s unfortunate, because while it seems Ethan is working to prove how O’Connor’s work represented parts of her inner life, and while they’re the more interesting parts of the film, they feel like inexplicable fragments.
O’Connor’s publisher (played by the always smooth Alessandro Nivola) tells her, “[You’re] trying to stick pins in your readers, trying to pick a fight.” It feels as though Ethan is doing the same, though not intentionally. Wildcat feels as though it was made exclusively for true O’Connor fans who are already deeply familiar with her lore and will need no timestamps, signifiers or clear transitions to follow the plot.
Still, Maya’s performance as O’Connor is hard to accept. She’s weighed down by giant hats, unfortunately styled hair, oversized glasses, horrifically clunky prosthetic teeth and — at times — makeup depicting an expansive rash. With her caricature of a Southern accent and wide-eyed glances, it feels as if she’s putting on a school play while viewers are watching, waiting, praying for the curtain call. Linney is uncharacteristically larger-than-life here too, throwing on one appalling wig after another, prancing, yelling and crying across each scene as if she, too, is in that school play.
Certain narratives are wedged in awkwardly, like O’Connor’s distaste for her community’s rampant racism. It makes you wonder how the material might have fared if given the limited-series treatment, with more time to flesh out each part of the writer. Then again, like many filmmaking fathers before him, Ethan has clearly created a showcase for his daughter. And that pulls focus from the real subject — Flannery O’Connor, a legendary American novelist — even though it’s apparent just how much the two love her and her legacy.
Ultimately, it’s admirable how deep Ethan goes in his attempts to probe the great writer’s mind and the many fantasy worlds that lived there, alongside endless real-world concerns and frustrations. Always a tender actor, Ethan is usually able to bring that sensitive approach to his other directing efforts — including 2018’s Blaze, which shares a similar tone. Here, however, it’s all too much — to the point that it might not cut it for Flannery fangirls and fanboys.
