Turns out I’m not even comfortable watching people with boundary issues, much less having one in my life. The shame is I might have enjoyed Wilson were boundaries his only encroachment. This middle-aged, unfiltered mess (Woody Harrelson) is exactly the kind of person we love in the movies, but hate in real life. As it turns out in this case, we don’t exactly enjoy him in the movies, either.
Wilson is the kind of loser who is repeatedly taking stock of his life. Seems natural as nothing else seems to occupy his time or space. He lives with a dog he adores and spends his days looking for 10-cent companionship – the kind where he greets a fellow world traveler [read: stranger] and has unsolicited conversation right up to the point where somebody tells him that they would rather not participate in this conversation. Amiable as Wilson is for the first ten seconds, the rejection threshold is reached early on in most of his encounters and we blame none of the reluctant participants. Only the attention-starved would bother to engage longer than is polite. Few protagonists are so constantly undermined by their own personalities.
When Wilson loses his father, his world is empty. No longer satisfied with directionless encounters, he tracks down his straw-grasping ex-wife (Laura Dern) and soon learns he has a living daughter (Isabella Amara). In barely five minutes of screentime, Wilson has gone from suicidal to Christmas-every-day. And we the audience have but one question: “how is he gonna blow this?” Because blow it he will. Wilson is not meant for people.
The big joke is that Wilson is so poor at reading social and societal cues that he can easily get in trouble without meaning to. This is played off on screen as “Wilson marches to his own quarter quell” or some such foolishness. No sane pacifist would deliberately question a stranger about his facial swastika tattoo… especially in an antagonistic tenor. There’s an odd contradiction between the generally enjoyable way Wilson leads his life and
the fact that 80% of the conversations he has are complete trainwrecks. I felt myself being just sympathetic enough to be repulsed anew with any encounter. If he could just meet people without meeting them, that would be great.
Wilson begs the odds question, “just because you can carry a film, does that mean you ought to carry a film?” We now trust Woody Harrelson. He’s come a long way from somebody whose ideal role is probably “dirty cop.” I won’t belabor the point – you know what I’m talking about. He ain’t Brad Pitt, but you’ll still watch him. So what do you do when he latches onto a character who is watchable but not enjoyable? I was hugely disappointed by Wilson, which looked like such fun in the trailer, but in retrospect I suppose the film is exactly what it intended to be – the character study of a good-natured-yet-ill-fitting loser. There are only a few roads to drive that particular vehicle to the land of Thumbsup and this isn’t one of them.
♪Two stars for this, enjoy
I got a character study and it’s driven by Woody
(Pan City, here we come)
You know he’s not Robert Downey; but it’s his film, oh goody
(Pan City, here we come)
Well, it ain’t like a Desk Set or a Rear Window
But it will occupy the time that wanna blow
And we’re goin’ to Pan City, ‘cause it’s two and done
You know we’re goin’ to Pan City, one half-hour of fun
You know we’re goin’ to Pan City, yes, there’s no home run
You know we’re goin’ to Pan City, tennis anyone?
Two stars for this, enjoy♫
Rated R, 94 Minutes
D: Craig Johnson
W: Daniel Clowes
Genre: Playful, annoying Woody
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: People holding out for Zombieland II
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Those who saw the trailer
♪ Parody inspired by “Surf City”
