Book excerpt: from 'Pow! Zoom! Bang!: Comics and the Cinema': 'Wilson' (2017)

 

Wilson

Ad Hominem Enterprises: 2017

Source: Wilson – Daniel Clowes

Director: Craig Johnson  Producers: Jared Ian Goldman, Mary Jane Skalski  Screenwriter: Daniel Clowes  Cinematographer: Frederick Elmes  Leading Players: Woody Harrelson, Laura Dern, Cheryl Hines

101 min.

This movie is a hidden gem. It’s an old-school comedy odyssey for grown-ups, an excursion into the unique mind of the noted graphic novelist Daniel Clowes, who composed the screenplay as well. Thoroughly enjoyable, its quirky and profane observations on mundane life, and the characters who inhabit it are charming.

Woody Harrelson is here the title character, a befuddled middle-aged flailer at life with no filter whatsoever no family connections, and with exactly one friend (played by the great Brett Gelman, who steals his scene). Wilson is a great character to play, one who distinctively always says exactly what he thinks. This transforms his speech into a kind of offensive poetry. He constantly goes where he is not wanted, physically and mentally.

 His father dies, leaving him his absurdly large paneled station wagon to drive around in. He’s lonely. Only his faithful dog Pepper consoles him. Wilson, a stranger to Internet research, finds out that his ex-wife of 17 years has returned to their town in Minnesota. She, Pippi (Laura Dern) reveals that she did not abort Wilson’s baby all those years ago and that he has a daughter.

Wilson is ecstatic, and he hunts down and barges into his teenaged daughter Claire’s life, dragging Pippi behind him. They establish a weird kind of relationship with the girl (Isabella Arama), who doesn’t know what to make of them. Wilson is energized by the contact . . . but then he blows it all up when he and Pippi take Claire, without her adoptive parents’ permission, to meet Pippi’s mean, perfect suburban sister Polly (Cheryl Hines) and her completely successful family (everyone but Wilson and Pippi is well-off, it seems).

Pippi attacks Polly, the cops come, and Wilson gets three years in jail for kidnapping and child endangerment. Oddly, he perseveres and becomes his best self in prison, befriending everyone. In the blackest of comic observations, the movie says it’s where a soul such as his really fits in.

Pippi leaves him for her Narcotics Anonymous sponsor, and is off to Australia. Released, he goes back to visit the lady who used to dog-sit for him, Shelly (the dependable Judy Greer, who’s made a whopping 179 films) and falls into a romantic relationship with her.

Claire gets back in touch with him, revealing that she is pregnant and moving to Portland. Wison considers moving, but for once in his life makes a smart move and stays where he is. The last image is he and Shelly loving his grandchild via livechat on his computer.

These are comic archetypes. Harrelson and Dern have a ball as Wilson and Pippi. He’s a wandering eccentric; she’s a good-hearted dimwit. Watching them metaphorically sticking their tongues in the light socket, over and over again, is entertaining but heart-rending at the same time. Our lead characters are inane, obtuse, deluded – but we end up rooting for them. It's classic comedy.

Direction Johnson does a great job with a top-notch cast, holding back from the characters ever-so-slightly, quietly watching their akimbo emotions splashing around the landscape, derailing their lives. Wilson resolves itself, redeems its characters, even gives us a happy ending. It’s a kind of pilgrim’s progress.