Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise- the new Flannery O’Connor movie produced by Ethan Hawke and acted by his daughter Maya Hawke is fantastic. I had a feeling it would be after watching the excellent father-daughter-spiritual father discussion with Bishop Barron. In that discussion Ethan is definitely the more mature thinker and moviemaker (he has been great going back to Gattaca and Training Day), but Maya has spunk and a finger on today’s pulse (watch her in Stranger Things).
I saw the movie today with some Flannery-reading friends, and we all agree it did not disappoint. I think the best way to get more people to see the movie (which I hope will happen) would be to share some questions my friends and I discussed as we were forming our judgment on it.
*SPOILER ALERT*
Q: What’s with the title, “Wildcat”? Is it named after that early short story by Flannery? Yes- but truth be told, there is only a slight, slight connection between the short story and this story. Maya’s explanation to Bishop Barron seems like a bit of a stretch- that Flannery’s character is like a Wildcat. The plot of the movie MAINLY connected with the short story “The Enduring Chill”. If you read one thing before watching the movie (and really you should), read THE ENDURING CHILL about an intellectual returning home to the south from New York who is haunted by an image of the Holy Ghost- an ice bird.
Q: Does Wildcat capture the magic of Flannery’s genius? Yes. The key scenes of five or six of her other short stories are excellently represented by Maya (Everything That Rises Must Converge, Good Country People, The Life You Save May Be Your Own, Revelation, and Parker's Back). Those were very good choices, some of her best.
Q: What if you’ve never read Flannery or don’t like what Flannery writes- will this move still stand up? Yes, because Flannery is such an amazing person that her life in itself makes for a good story.
Q: Is Wildcat true to Flannery as a person? I think so- from her letters and other accounts we know Flannery was multifaceted, but most of all was a devout Catholic who tried to bring that into every part of her life. Was Flannery O’Connor romantically involved with Robert Lowell (“Cal”)? My friends say that was certainly a possibility but they don’t know that for sure- but Wildcat would be stupid not to include a love story in a movie. The one thing I might change is to have more scenes with Flannery laughing; she cracks jokes and smiles alot, as she does in the old photographs, but she doesn’t really laugh that much. Maybe that’s right, but personally I always imagined Flannery laughing her ass off at the funny things she’d think up- and write up in her stories. Yes she was in extreme pain due to her debilitating disease… but I have known many Irish and southerners with an approach to life of laughing about something so they wouldn’t have to cry about something (O’Connor was both).
Q: Is Wildcat true to Flannery’s Catholicism and worldview? Yes. There are 3 settings- her home of Milledgeville, Georgia; New York City; and the Iowa Writers’ workshop. She felt some distance from the country folks back home in Georgia; but that’s not because she was an intellectual elitist. Wildcat shows likewise that she was likewise distant from the snobbish intellectual elites at the Iowa Writers’ workshop; they were too morally decadent and unserious for her, in real life and in the nihilism they wrote. The best scene in the movie involves Flannery talking to a Priest Confessor (PERFECTLY played by Liam Neeson). The first half of the scene is very similar to a meeting with a Jesuit in “The Enduring Chill,” where extremely basic and standard Catholic advice for saving one’s soul is hammered into the main character. But halfway through the scene in Wildcat, a real conversation between a spiritual father and a Catholic takes place. He says she needs to do charity; she says her only gift is writing. He points out that the gift she has to offer God is of course worthy. Both Ethan Hawke and Maya Hawke have pointed out that they know this scene is the fulcrum of the movie- and it does beautifully capture something that I think Flannery would recognize and approve.
Q: Is Wildcat true to Flannery as a Southern writer? This is the one aspect of Flannery perhaps the movie could have improved upon. A scene is included where a liberal at the Iowa Writers Workshop lectures Flannery for using the “N” word- and she tells him off, saying that such things were true to life in the south. The movie also presents some of Flannery’s criticisms of the racism she experienced at home through her short story “Revelation.” But Flannery did not hate her home- she considered herself to be both a southern and a Catholic writer (as Peter Lawler once said- she is both the best southern and Catholic writer). Not every story she wrote was a critique of her mom and the people she grew up with- though no doubt some were. The one line from Flannery that captures her attitude toward home I think, and that the movie almost says at the end (and I wish they had said it):
When in Rome- do as you done in Milledgeville.
But- overall, Bravo!
I saw it a few days ago. Loved it. The scene with the priest was especially powerful.
Glad to read a review I can trust. Didn't like Hank Ed'son's over at L & L.