Wildlife

Right now you can watch Wildlife in Australia on Stan, and in the US on Netflix and Philo — and it holds up to as much attention as you give it. A tight runtime that never overstays its welcome. With 784 viewer ratings on TMDB, this is not a title flying under the radar. Jake Gyllenhaal leads a cast that never overplays its hand. Put it on tonight on Stan and see for yourself.

Wildlife arrived without much fanfare and built its audience the hard way — through word of mouth. Wildlife takes its time building the world its characters inhabit, and the patience pays off. 14-year-old Joe is the only child of Jeanette and Jerry — a housewife and a golf pro — in a small town in 1960s Montana. Nearby, an uncontrolled forest fire rages close to the Canadian border, and when Jerry loses his job (and his sense of purpose) he decides to join the cause of fighting the fire, leaving his wife and son to fend for themselves. Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan lead a cast that brings real weight to the material. It was released in 2018. Wildlife resists tidy resolutions in a way that respects how messy real consequences actually are. It delivers reliably on what it promises, which is more than most of its competition manages.

Viewers drawn to character-driven storytelling will find plenty to sit with in Wildlife. It rewards viewers regardless of what else is in their watch history. A contained runtime means every scene is doing real work. Jake Gyllenhaal carries the material with a performance that rewards close attention. Worth starting sooner rather than later.