SquigglyCrunch Wildlike follows a teenage girl as she goes to live with her uncle. She soon realizes that circumstances at home with her uncle are unbearable and ultimately she runs away, where she meets an older man about to go hiking. I love the title. It's a simple word that is rarely used in the English language, and it fits the movie pretty well. It's a small thing that proves that the director gave a bigger crap about this movie than some others might've. There are some pretty nice scenic shots in this movie. They aren't anything I haven't seen before, but they were pretty at least. The actors are pretty good. I bought each performance, and the writing accompanying them was pretty good too. It was like each part was written for the actor who played them. They manage to embody these characters really well. The movie spends a decent amount of time developing certain plot points. I specifically appreciated this at the beginning of the movie when the girl and her uncle first start living together. Their relationship is pretty well developed, although short lived, and there're a couple great scenes involving the uncle alone in his room. We as the audience see the turning point in him when he decides to make living with him unbearable, and we see him struggling with this decision and it's something we just don't see every often in movies. It brings humanity to the bad guy right off the bat, and I really appreciated that. The two main characters Kenzie and Bart have really good chemistry, and I really enjoyed seeing them on screen together and interacting and all that. I quite enjoyed the soundtrack as well. There were a handful of good songs throughout, and most of them suited the movie pretty well too. Unfortunately the story does fall flat on it's face from time to time. When the actual hiking starts it's kind of forced. There's not really a good reason for it to actually happen and serves more as filler, character development, and scenic shots. The last two of those things are good, but like I said, it's pretty forced. You as the audience are able to understand for the most part why it happens, but it's still kind of dumb. Overall Wildlike is pretty good. There's some great chemistry between the two main characters, some good actors, the main 'antagonist' is great and very human, the soundtrack is good and the scenery is pretty, but the plot is often forced for the sake of story progression. In the end I'd recommend this movie.

eyeintrees At no time did I not feel for the female lead in this movie. The actress portrayed the huge struggles in her life with her face and eyes despite the minimal script, or because of it... and all the trauma of being abused, afraid, entrapped, alone and homeless, and then surviving as best she could, with utmost realism. Not once did she err on the side of overacting or melodrama.The male leads were also perfectly cast and did an excellent job.I have no idea what was going on with the countryside in the Alaskan mountains, whereby either the camera was hand-held and the scenery was jumping or it was superimposed... that was weird but only lasted for about 10 minutes of the movie... not in a big way but it was a little amateurish.I would have liked to have learned why the girl's father died... we didn't and so, under the assumption that her mother was an addict who was supposed to be in 'treatment' but who checked herself out and disappeared, did this poor young protagonist have a father who od'd, was dysfunctional etc etc??I got the impression that the situation presenting in this movie regarding the sexual abuse was not new to the girl in the role and that perhaps this 14 year old had just being going the 'easy route' with a long list of abusive mother's boyfriends for years... it certainly wasn't portrayed as if this kind of abuse was new to her, rather that the way she had learned to cope with it was to deal with it as per the movie shows.In my experience, if a young person feels unsupported and that there is no one who cares or to turn to, they develop low key coping mechanisms but begin to show the long term side effects of the abuse as a 'life skill'.All very well done until the worst ending in living history, making me feel I had just sat and watched an intelligent and powerful movie until the director or somebody got bored and yelled 'cut' without any even vaguely, not even close to an intelligent ending.I have no idea what happened. Frankly, the guy should have been taken to the police and so on. No idea what happens in the end. I was left feeling like a pancake... flat and covered in layers of sugar coated junk.

nillobit Drama, fantasy, comedy - whatever the story genre, good ones have one thing in common. Truth. The story needs to tell the audience of something they know, something they have forgotten or something they can now imagine. Case in point, two films I've recently watched illustrate success and failure clearly. Both involve children being sent away to visit with less than careful parents. I intend to post this review at the site of both films, because the contrast is clear. Wildlike & The Visit both are stories about children being sent away to visit with relatives, mistakenly, by troubled parents. Both are stories about horror, but, where one tells us about evil, the other tells us bad puns. In Wildlike we see a young girl sent away by a defective mother who can't handle taking care of herself or her child. In this movie we walk in this child's shoes and understand the choices she makes. The evil she faces is banal, quiet and could go unnoticed. We see the past and current trauma this child has endured in the acting and writing. The truth is this is everyday evil, the kind that we won't change without understanding it. In the Visit we see a sister and brother sent away by a mother distracted by her own issues. Children know when their parent's are not competent. It affects them and causes doubt and tension. Instead of reflecting that, these siblings are snarky, self involved, smart alecks who are not cautious, vigilant or concerned. The danger these kids face is overt and direct early on, but they seem not to take it serious. Neither can the audience. The truth in a similar film of M. Night Shyamalan's, the Sixth Sense was not the horror the child faced, that only made the film compelling. The truth was about the adults learning to respect the child's view of reality. Their is no such kernel in The Visit.

Ray Schillaci The big winner of the festival (15th Annual Phoenix Film Festival) was Frank Hall Green's "Wildlike". Winner of Best Acting Ensemble, Best Screenplay and Best Picture which pulled out all the stops in its breathtaking Alaskan beauty and subtle emotional impact. Ella Purnell plays Mackenzie, a troubled teen who is sent by her struggling mother to live with her uncle in Juneau, Alaska. Unfortunately, Uncle is on the creepy side and is not above manhandling his underage niece. First chance she gets, Mackenzie runs away and attempts to head back to Seattle.We see MacKenzie making bad decisions, stumbling through awkward situations, and eventually meeting up with an older man who's wife passed away a year before. Bruce Greenwood delivers a gentle and earthy performance as Rene Bartlett, the man determined to travel alone through an area of Alaska that he and his wife were suppose to trek through. MacKenzie finally finds someone she can place trust in, but it is not an easy union.Some may consider Rene to be the father figure that Mackenzie has been searching for, but he could easily be just a decent enough human being that Mackenzie needs in her life. Although, it's not an easy pairing since the man resists having so much emotional baggage even though he does care for her well-being. Their journey through the Alaskan wild and how they connect on so many emotional levels is a trip worth taking. Frank Hall Green somehow not only captures the intimacy of his two explorers, but also of the wilderness itself. Quiet moments are so nuanced that one cannot help reflect on the wonders of both human nature and nature itself.Ella Purnell demonstrates a natural ability to convey strength and vulnerability all at once. She can be both spunky and timid, and we believe her every step of the way. The one thing I could not get over was her striking resemblance to actress Reese Witherspoon, and how both have now done films with wildlife settings around the same time period.Green gives us an absorbing look into this troubled teen, the men in her life all the while providing something much more than just a travelogue. He incorporates the John Ford techniques, showing us how small we really are compared to everything going on around us, but then brings us back with an intimacy that keeps us well in touch with those we care about. "Wildlike" is a gorgeous film that touches our heart and soul.This review is taken in part from my article, "Highlights from the Phoenix Film Festival" from The Movie Guys.