“For as long as I have wanted to make films, I have known I would make films about family. In my home growing up, there was an extraordinary amount of love and also incredible turbulence. I was caught off-guard when I read a book that opened a window to that duality: Wildlife, by Richard Ford.
I spent a year daydreaming about it. One final day, a scene came to me - the final image of what would be my film. It gave me the courage to go forward. I wrote to Richard Ford, and secured the option for the book. Ford in an email gave me a great gift: 'I'm grateful to you for your interest in my book; but I should also say this - in hopes of actually encouraging you: my book is my book; your picture - were you to make it - is your picture. Your movie-maker's fidelity to my novel is of no great concern to me. Establish your own values, means, goals; leave the book behind so it doesn't get in the way.' His words empowered me to begin writing with my partner, Zoe Kazan.
I knew I wanted to make something honest and spare. I wanted the filmmaking to be guided by the image, and the cut. I didn’t want to move the camera, unless it was necessary. Here is an excerpt of my journal from 2013, as I was preparing to write: “I want this film to feel personal. I want it to explore feelings I have had, through Joe. I want it to ask questions about family and parents. I want to explore a loss of hope, a family unravelling, and then finally surviving. I want to explore how even when the worst thing happens, we can still survive. We can still be family. We may never be the same, but we still have love. And we still have our lives to live.
Wildlife is about a kid seeing his parents change and their marriage break - and through his parents' failures, having to grow up. It is a coming of age story for all three: mother, father, and son. While it is about struggle and heartbreak and disillusionment, it is a film guided by love. Now that it is time for me to share this film, I can see that - like our protagonist Joe - I made a family portrait as a means of acceptance, and of letting go.”
