Director – Fritz Böhm, Screenplay – Fritz Böhm & Florian Eder, Producers – Celine Rattray, Trudie Styler, Liv Tyler & Charlotte Ubben, Photography – Toby Oiver, Music – Paul Haslinger, Visual Effects Supervisor – Andreas Alesik, Visual Effects – Batelion, DigiTale Studios, Federlis, Filmgate VFX (Supervisor – Alan Banis), Mental Drive Studio (Supervisor – Oleksii Moskalenko), ScanlineVFX & Slice Production Studios (Supervisor – Michael Kulzer), Special Effects Supervisor – Brian Schuley, Makeup Effects – Gotham FX, Production Design – Lauren Fitzimmons. Production Company – Maven Pictures/IM Global/Film I Väst/Filmgate Films/Arri Media.
Cast
Bel Powley (Anna), Liv Tyler (Sheriff Ellen Cooper), Collin Kelly-Sordelet (Ray Cooper), Brad Dourif (Gabriel Hanson), Troy Ruptash (Deputy Roger Fowler), Aviva Winick (10-Year Old Anna), Arlo Mertz (4-Year Old Anna), Frank Deal (Dr Rooney), Bhavesh Patel (Doctor), Charlotte Ubben (Jen)
Plot
Anna is raised in isolation by her father, who always keeps her indoors with the doorknob electrified supposedly to keep away the wildlings that haunt the woods. After Anna has her first period, he begins to inject her but eventually gives up and shoots himself. Anna is found and taken to the nearby hospital. There she proves a complete innocent with no idea about the rest of the world. The sheriff Ellen Cooper takes Anna to stay with her until a living relative can be located. Anna forms an attachment/attraction to Ellen’s teenage brother Ray. However, the threat of the wildlings remains not too far off and Anna begins to feel unusual urges stirring within her.
Wildling was a directorial debut for German director Fritz Böhm who subsequently went on to write the story for Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (2021). The film was financed by a surprising consortium of international companies, including being produced by high-profile names like Trudie Styler, Sting’s wife.
Wildling immediately held my attention from its opening thirteen minutes. We have what appears to be father Brad Dourif tending the young Anna but what is going on becomes increasingly more ominous. She is told stories of the wildlings and then finds that the door handle of her bedroom has been electrified, supposedly to prevent the wildlings getting in. She then has her period and Dourif starts to treat her with a series of injections but this does not prevent her from breaking out in markings or possibly infection on her stomach and face. This ends when Dourif brings in a shotgun, at first it seems to use on her before he turns it on himself. In interviews Dourif says he was attracted to the role as a parent and we see him playing at his most concerned and caring. This is contrasted against the subsequent scenes at the hospital where the doctor (Bhavesh Patel) informs Liv Tyler that Anna had been injected with drugs to stop her menstruation and inhibit maturity.
Bel Powley as Anna discovering her wildling nature
British actress Bel Powley is deservous of wider recognition. She gives a fantastic performance here. The sense of an innocent adrift in the world is a part that she seems to live and breathe naturally. Even physically she seems perfect when it comes to portraying a wide-eyed innocence and a character who has never been in the outside world before – “Are you the daddy?” she asks Liv Tyler. Or responds to Liv’s “I don’t drink any more” with “Don’t you get thirsty?”
The latter sections of the film tread the more familiar paths of the Werewolf Film – even if it never quite comes out and says so – with Bel Powley transforming into a creature and running off into the wild. It is sort of a werewolf transformation but without full moons and silver bullets. Here the film’s dealing with Bel’s divided nature is fairly much by the standard playbook of the werewolf film and not quite fulfilling of the great almost mythic build-up that the opening sections give us. The film never does much to explain what its wildlings are or the mythology behind their hunting. What we have works well but an even more interesting film would have expanded out on this side of things.
