Taking top prize at this year’s Film Festival, Wildlike depicts hurt and healing in the great wide open of the Alaskan frontier.
Though it certainly punches above its weight, Knoxville is not known for its film scene. Sure, our city has recently spawned two fantastic debut films from local directors (Scott Murphy’s Ain’t It Nowhere and Paul Harrill’s Something, Anything). And Knoxville hosts a handful of fantastic festivals highlighting filmmaking across the spectrum, but, to be frank, we’re not L.A. We’re not New York. We’re not London. We’re not a major city with the ability to curate the most interesting films the world has to offer from impressive up and coming crews. And that is why it was so great to be able to screen Wildlike at this year’s Knoxville Film Festival.
Wildlike is the story of teenage Mackenzie, played by Ella Purnell, and her struggle to run from a series of misfortunes. It starts with the death of her father, and spirals out of control with sexual exploitation from her uncle whom she is spontaneously forced to live with in Juneau, Alaska. Fed up with the wash of her day-to-day life in the suffocating small fishing town, Mackenzie goes on the run. She is desperate for escape however it may present itself, as well as help, however she may be able to coerce it from others. Mackenzie takes advantage of anyone who may be able to help her return to her home in Seattle through pleading, theft, and sexual prowess, until she crosses paths with Rene, played by the veteran actor Bruce Greenwood, a hiker on an honorary last trek in memory of his late wife. Mackenzie quickly designates Rene a father figure, despite his resistance. Their relationship culminates in Mackenzie’s insistence to hike Denali National Park with Rene, slowly binding the two through the troubled paths behind them.
Wildlike does a really great job of avoiding a lot of tropes associated with sexual abuse in pop culture. Mackenzie is not fetishized as some Lolita teen sexpot or an innocent angelic caricature, and her abuser is not a monstrous dastardly figure of historically dubious character. Mackenzie could be a girl you see running around with friends at the mall, and her uncle is a seemingly normal thirty-something year old bachelor in a small unassuming Alaskan town. Ella Purnell brings just the right touch of teenage innocence and angst to her remarkably believable role, and Greenwood’s natural fatherly demeanor is utilized here as effectively as ever.
The piece is a really astonishing debut film for writer/producer/director Frank Hall Green, showing a lot of poise and grasp over a really wide scoping film. The Alaskan wilderness, though certainly challenging, sets such a distinctly healing tone for the wounds of its travelers; one that encourages immersion into the great unknown as the ultimate therapy. The idea that the characters at the heart of the piece can literally run away and clear their heads is a really refreshing sentiment to see in this medium, and one that seems somehow new. With this thread of Mackenzie, Rene, and the great wide open, Green stitches a beautiful tale of overcoming abuse and heartache as well as therapy by way of instinctual human nature.
Taking home the top prize at this year’s film festival, Wildlike genuinely elaborates on hurt and healing with the help of the world around us. Being able to show films with the caliber and boldness of Wildlike shows a lot of promise for the direction Knoxville’s film scene is currently taking, and where it can go in the future.
