Something Wild | |
---|---|
Directed by | Jonathan Demme |
Written by | E. Max Frye |
Produced by |
|
Starring | |
Cinematography | Tak Fujimoto |
Edited by | Craig McKay |
Music by | |
Distributed by | Orion Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 113 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $7 million [1] |
Box office | $8.4 million [2] |
Something Wild is a 1986 American action comedy film directed by Jonathan Demme, written by E. Max Frye, and starring Melanie Griffith, Jeff Daniels and Ray Liotta. [3] It was screened out of competition at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. [4] The film has some elements of a road movie combined with screwball comedy.
Charlie Driggs is a conventional yuppie investment banker who works in New York City. After he leaves a greasy spoon diner without paying, a wildly dressed woman with a brunette bob who calls herself Lulu confronts him. Lulu offers Charlie a ride downtown but instead heads for New Jersey and throws his beeper from the moving car. Lulu openly drinks liquor while driving and stops in a town to buy more. While Charlie phones his office, Lulu — unbeknownst to him — robs a liquor store.
Charlie claims the cash he is carrying is for his Christmas club account, but Lulu persuades him to pay for a room at a roadside motel. Once inside she handcuffs him to the bed. She phones his boss and puts the receiver to his head while they are having sex, forcing him into an awkward conversation. Later Charlie pretends to phone his wife but Lulu is unaware that his marriage ended nine months ago.
After sharing a meal with Lulu at an Italian restaurant, Charlie realizes he is unable to pay with what little cash he has left. Lulu leaves him with the check, forcing him to flee the restaurant to escape an angry chef who demands payment. After spending the night at a motel, Lulu and Charlie awaken to find a police officer and tow truck near the car she drove down an embankment and into a signpost the night before. Lulu abandons the car and buys one from a sleazy used car dealer, leaving Charlie wondering where she got the money. He starts to enjoy Lulu's free-wheeling lifestyle and realizes he is falling in love with her.
Lulu confesses that her real name is Audrey and introduces Charlie as her husband to her mother, Peaches, at her Pennsylvania home. She appears as a demure blonde, having removed her brunette wig. She takes Charlie to her high school reunion, where a former classmate recognizes him as his office colleague. Audrey's violent ex-convict husband, Ray Sinclair, also appears and makes clear that he wants her back. After ditching his date, Ray takes Audrey and Charlie along while he robs a convenience store. He pistol-whips a clerk and breaks Charlie's nose. They drive to a cheap motel, where Ray forces Charlie to admit his wife left him (having learned this from Charlie's colleague at the class reunion). Realizing Charlie has deceived her, Audrey stays behind with Ray.
Despite Ray warning him to stay away from him and Audrey, Charlie secretly tails the couple as they leave the motel. Charlie confronts Ray in a Virginia restaurant with several police officers seated nearby and threatens to reveal Ray's parole violations unless he allows Audrey to leave with him. He demands that Ray hand over his wallet and car keys and leaves the check with Ray to force him to stay behind as they flee. Ray is saved from this dilemma by a shop girl he had met earlier.
Charlie takes Audrey to his Stony Brook, Long Island, home, but their idyllic suburban retreat is literally shattered when Ray hurls a patio chair through their sliding glass door. He severely beats Charlie and handcuffs him to the pipes under the bathroom sink before attacking Audrey. Charlie frees himself by pulling the pipes apart and strangles Ray with the handcuffs. During the scuffle, Charlie retrieves Ray's dropped knife. Ray dies when he accidentally impales himself on the knife Charlie is holding. Audrey is taken away for questioning when the police arrive.
Charlie later quits his job and looks for Audrey at her apartment, but finds she has moved. Outside the diner where Charlie met Audrey, a waitress accuses him of leaving without paying. Audrey suddenly appears with the cash he left on the table in her hand. Stylishly dressed and with elegant makeup, she smiles and invites Charlie into her woodie station wagon and back into her life.
Something Wild was acclaimed by critics. The film holds a 91% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 47 reviews, with an average rating of 7.40/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Boasting loads of quirky charm, a pair of likable leads, and confident direction from Jonathan Demme, Something Wild navigates its unpredictable tonal twists with room to spare." [5] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [6] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale. [7]
Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert rated the film 31⁄2-stars-out-of-4 and stated "Something Wild is quite a movie. Demme is a master of finding the bizarre in the ordinary. The accomplishment of Demme and the writer, E. Max Frye, is to think their characters through before the very first scene. They know all about Charlie and Lulu, and so what happens after the meeting outside that restaurant is almost inevitable, given who they are and how they look at each other. This is one of those rare movies where the plot seems surprised at what the characters do." [8] Chicago Tribune film critic Dave Kehr gave the film a perfect four star review, stating "It's not every day that someone goes Alfred Hitchcock one better, but in Something Wild, Jonathan Demme has done it." [9]
Pauline Kael, writing for the New Yorker , stated: "Something Wild is rough-edged. It doesn’t have the grace of Demme's Citizens Band and Melvin and Howard or the heightened simplicity of his Stop Making Sense . It has something else, though -- a freedom that takes off from the genre framework." [10] A more mixed review from Vincent Canby of the New York Times stated: "The performances are, without exception, good. The film's principal difficulty is E. Max Frye's original screenplay, which is better thought out in terms of its narrative than of the characters." [11]
Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
Boston Society of Film Critics Awards | Best Supporting Actor | Ray Liotta | Won [lower-alpha 1] | [12] |
Casting Society of America | Best Casting for Feature Film – Comedy | Risa Bramon and Billy Hopkins | Nominated | [13] |
Edgar Allan Poe Awards | Best Motion Picture Screenplay | E. Max Frye | Won | |
Golden Globe Awards | Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | Jeff Daniels | Nominated | [14] |
Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | Melanie Griffith | Nominated | ||
Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture | Ray Liotta | Nominated | ||
National Society of Film Critics Awards | Best Supporting Actor | 3rd Place | [15] | |
New York Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Supporting Actor | 3rd Place | [16] |
Something Wild was released on VHS by HBO Video on July 15, 1987. The film was released on DVD by MGM on June 5, 2001, presented in its original 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio. The only special feature was the original theatrical trailer.
On May 10, 2011, Something Wild was released by The Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu-ray. The Blu-ray has a new, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Tak Fujimoto and approved by director Jonathan Demme. It also features new video interviews with Demme and writer E. Max Frye, the original theatrical trailer, and a special booklet featuring an essay by film critic David Thompson. [17]
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | link |
The Village Voice | B+ [18] |
The film's soundtrack was released on LP and CD, featuring only 10 of the 49 tracks in the title credits. Notable omissions from the CD were the school reunion songs performed by The Feelies (including "Fame", "Before the Next Teardrop Falls" and "I'm a Believer"), and The Troggs' "Wild Thing" (which gave the film its title and which was sung in the convertible scene).
Chart (1987) | Peak position |
---|---|
Australia (Kent Music Report) [19] | 62 |
Robert Jonathan Demme was an American filmmaker, whose career directing, producing, and screenwriting spanned more than 30 years and 70 feature films, documentaries, and television productions. He was an Academy Award and a Directors Guild of America Award winner, and received nominations for a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and three Independent Spirit Awards.
French Kiss is a 1995 romantic comedy film directed by Lawrence Kasdan and starring Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline. Written by Adam Brooks, the film is about a woman who flies to France to confront her straying fiancé and gets into trouble when the charming crook seated next to her uses her to smuggle a stolen diamond necklace. French Kiss was filmed on location in Paris, the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur région of southeastern France, and Cannes. The film was released in the United States on May 5, 1995, and received mixed reviews. The film was a success and went on to earn a total worldwide gross of $101,982,854.
Stranger Than Paradise is a 1984 American black-and-white absurdist deadpan comedy film directed, co-written and co-edited by Jim Jarmusch, and starring jazz musician John Lurie, former Sonic Youth drummer-turned-actor Richard Edson, and Hungarian-born actress and violinist Eszter Balint. It features a minimalist plot in which the main character, Willie, is visited by Eva, his cousin from Hungary. Eva stays with him for ten days before going to Cleveland. Willie and his friend Eddie go to Cleveland to visit her, and the three then take a trip to Florida. The film is shot entirely in single long takes with no standard coverage.
Paris, Texas is a 1984 neo-Western drama road film directed by Wim Wenders, co-written by Sam Shepard and L. M. Kit Carson, and produced by Don Guest. It stars Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski, Dean Stockwell, Aurore Clément, and Hunter Carson. In the film, disheveled recluse Travis Henderson (Stanton) reunites with his brother Walt (Stockwell) and son Hunter (Carson). Travis and Hunter embark on a trip through the American Southwest to track down Travis's missing wife, Jane (Kinski).
Barton Fink is a 1991 American period black comedy psychological thriller film written, produced, edited and directed by the Coen brothers. Set in 1941, it stars John Turturro in the title role as a young New York City playwright who is hired to write scripts for a film studio in Hollywood, and John Goodman as Charlie Meadows, the insurance salesman who lives next door at the run-down Hotel Earle.
Days of Being Wild is a 1990 Hong Kong drama film written and directed by Wong Kar-Wai. Starring some of the best-known actors and actresses in Hong Kong, including Leslie Cheung, Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung, Carina Lau, Jacky Cheung and Tony Leung, the film marks the first collaboration between Wong and cinematographer Christopher Doyle, with whom he has since made six more films.
Nurse Betty is a 2000 American black comedy film directed by Neil LaBute and starring Renée Zellweger as the title character, a small town, Kansas housewife-waitress who suffers a nervous breakdown after witnessing her husband's torture murder, and starts obsessively pursuing her favorite television soap opera character, while in a fugue state. Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock play the hitmen who killed her husband and subsequently pursue her to Los Angeles.
More is a 1969 English-language romantic drama film written and directed by Barbet Schroeder in his directorial debut. Starring Mimsy Farmer and Klaus Grünberg, the film deals with heroin addiction as drug fascination on the island of Ibiza, Spain. Made in the political fallout of the 1960s counterculture, it features drug use, "free love", and other references to contemporary European youth culture.
Freeway is a 1996 American black comedy crime film written and directed by Matthew Bright and produced by Oliver Stone. It stars Kiefer Sutherland, Reese Witherspoon and Brooke Shields. The film's plot is a dark take on the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood".
Charade is a 1963 American romantic comedy mystery film produced and directed by Stanley Donen, written by Peter Stone and Marc Behm, and starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. The cast also features Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy, Dominique Minot, Ned Glass, and Jacques Marin. It spans three genres, suspense thriller, romance and comedy.
Sabrina is a 1954 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Billy Wilder, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Samuel A. Taylor and Ernest Lehman, based on Taylor's 1953 play Sabrina Fair. The picture stars Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, and William Holden. This was Wilder's last film released by Paramount Pictures, ending a 12-year business relationship between him and the company.
Married to the Mob is a 1988 American crime comedy film directed by Jonathan Demme, and starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Modine, Dean Stockwell, Mercedes Ruehl, and Alec Baldwin. Pfeiffer plays Angela de Marco, a gangster's widow from Brooklyn, opposite Modine as the undercover FBI agent assigned the task of investigating her mafia connections.
The Virgin Spring is a 1960 Swedish film directed by Ingmar Bergman. Set in medieval Sweden, it is a tale about a father's merciless response to the rape and murder of his young daughter. The story was adapted by screenwriter Ulla Isaksson from a 13th-century Swedish ballad, "Töres döttrar i Wänge". Bergman researched the legend of Per Töre with an eye to an adaptation, considering an opera before deciding on a film version. Given criticism of the historical accuracy of his 1957 film The Seventh Seal, he also invited Isaksson to write the screenplay. Other influences included the 1950 Japanese film Rashomon. Max von Sydow played Töre.
Charulata is a 1964 Indian drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray. Based upon the novel Nastanirh by Rabindranath Tagore, it stars Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee and Sailen Mukherjee. The film is considered one of the finest works of Ray.
The Devil's Rejects is a 2005 American black comedy horror film written, produced and directed by Rob Zombie, and is the second film in the Firefly film series, serving as a sequel to his 2003 film House of 1000 Corpses. The film is centered on the run of three members of the psychopathic antagonist family from the previous film, now seen as villainous protagonists, with Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, and Zombie's wife Sheri Moon Zombie reprising their roles, and Leslie Easterbrook replacing Karen Black as the matriarch.
La Chienne is a 1931 French film by director Jean Renoir. It is the second sound film by the director and the twelfth film of his career. The film is based on the eponymous story "La Chienne" by Georges de La Fouchardière. The literal English translation of the film's title is "The Bitch", although the movie was never released under this title. It is often referred to in English as Isn't Life a Bitch? The film was remade by Fritz Lang in the United States as Scarlet Street (1945).
Diane Luckey, known professionally as Q Lazzarus, was an American singer. She is best known for her 1988 song "Goodbye Horses", which became a cult classic after being prominently featured in a scene from Jonathan Demme's 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs. Several of her songs were featured in other films directed by Demme before she disappeared from the public eye in the mid-1990s.
Fool for Love is a 1985 American psychological drama film directed by Robert Altman, and starring Sam Shepard, Kim Basinger, Harry Dean Stanton, Randy Quaid, and Martha Crawford. It follows a woman awaiting the arrival of her boyfriend in a derelict motel in the Mojave Desert, where she is confronted by a previous lover who threatens to undermine her efforts. It is based on the 1983 stage play of the same name written by Shepard, who also adapted the screenplay.
The Truth About Charlie is a 2002 mystery film. It is a remake of Charade (1963) and an homage to François Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player (1960) complete with the French film star Charles Aznavour, making two appearances singing his song "Quand tu m'aimes". The film was produced, directed and co-written by Jonathan Demme, and stars Mark Wahlberg and Thandiwe Newton in the roles played by Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in Charade.
My Sassy Girl is a 2008 romantic comedy film and the remake of the 2001 South Korean film of the same name. It stars Elisha Cuthbert and Jesse Bradford and was directed by Yann Samuell. Both films are based on a true story told in a series of blog posts written by Kim Ho-sik, who later adapted them into a novel. The film is set in New York City's Central Park and Upper East Side. Samuell, describes the film as "a fable about destiny, " while Bradford described it as "a romantic comedy about how they pull each other to a more healthy place by virtue of their relationship."