“Wakefield” has a compelling idea at its center, not only in terms of story but in the thoughts that story expresses. But it’s not an idea for a feature film, at least not as we get it here.
It’s the story of a frustrated and slightly twisted husband and father, played by an actor who can inhabit that sort of character better than anybody. Bryan Cranston is Wakefield, another guy in a suit coming home to the suburbs on a commuter train. You wouldn’t know by glancing at him that he’s cracking up inside. To see that, you’d have to look at him closely.
We hear Wakefield’s thoughts in voiceover, and we know that his marriage is in trouble. We also know — and he doesn’t know this — that he’s the problem. He has not only become jealous of his wife (Jennifer Garner) to the point of paranoia, but he has come to depend on jealousy as the basis of his attraction to her. He seems to need to believe his wife desires other men in order for him to desire her.
So something is going on inside this man’s head. And then, just minutes into the film, the strangeness gets expressed in a peculiar way: One night, just as he’s about to walk through his front door, Wakefield sees a raccoon go into a large garden shed on the property. He follows the raccoon in, falls asleep and wakes up the next morning a missing person.
Instead of rushing out and reassuring his wife, he finds himself enjoying the spectacle that his absence causes. From the second floor window of the shed, he has a clear view into his house, and he starts imagining what his wife and kids are saying to each other. And the movie stays with Wakefield. It never goes into the house. Rather we see the characters through Wakefield’s eyes.
So this is an original film and a rather interesting one, and it benefits from Cranston’s odd ability to seem boring and normal and deeply sick all at the same time. But it’s a movie with one idea, and it needed two. “Wakefield” feels stretched and stretched and stretched, and then it ends just as the story’s third and final wave is ready to start.
Written and directed by Robin Swicord, “Wakefield” has the good and bad of a film that sprang from a single creative imagination. It’s original and idiosyncratic, but Swicord lets herself get away with things another director might not have allowed. To her credit, Swicord clearly made the film she wanted to make, but “Wakefield” stays stuck in one gear. It doesn’t fully deliver.
Still, for those who latch on to Wakefield’s mental journey and want to trace the progress of his strange variety of breakdown, there are rewards to be had. Just don’t expect him to get better any time soon. Mr. Wakefield is on his own timeline.
MOVIE REVIEW
“Wakefield”
Grade: C+
Starring Bryan Cranston and Jennifer Garner. Directed by Robin Swicord.
Rated R for some sexual material and language. Check listings for theaters. 1 hour, 46 minutes.
Bottom line: It's original and idiosyncratic, but doesn't fully deliver
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