Directed by Ethan Hawke, Written by Ethan Hawke and Shelby Gaines.
1. If you don’t know anything about Flannery O’Connor and her stories, this film serves as an excellent introduction.
If you’re new to the work of Flannery O’Connor, Wildcat will orient you to the salient features of much of her Southern gothic literary oeuvre, including her use of rural Georgia as setting, and the characters who inhabit the postwar rural south, ranging from prideful landed gentry to “poor white trash,” from crooked bible salesmen to maniacal would-be preachers. O’Connor claimed that while the south purports to be “Christ-centered,” it’s really “Christ- haunted,” and her stories are populated with characters engaged in a spiritual struggle, whether they realize it or not. Her protagonists are forced to deal with a pivotal moment of grace, and what it means for their lives. In O’Connor’s fictional universe, deeply rooted in her devout Catholicism, God often acts through an unlikely agent of grace on characters that many readers may find less than deserving, but that’s the nature of grace: God’s underserved mercy. Wildcat illuminates this concept through explorations of key moments in O’Connor’s fiction. These moments are often fraught, anxious or frightening, but always transformative. Concerned as she was for the souls of those in an increasingly secular world, violence is O’Connor’s way of getting the reader’s undivided attention, the kick in the head she believed most readers require to make them see the need for God in their lives. In Wildcat, O’Connor herself (Maya Hawke) seems startled by her own visions of sudden violence, recognizing it as the vehicle she would use to drive home her message to jaded modern audiences in need of saving.
2. If you already know a lot about Flannery O’Connor and her work, this film will give you new insights into both.
Many O’Connor fans are likely familiar with details of the author’s biography, such as her childhood in Savannah, move to Milledgeville as a teen, education at Georgia College and Iowa Writers Workshop, and the subsequent struggle with lupus that necessitated her return to Milledgeville. In photos of O’Connor, she appears as a studious young woman: intense, somewhat remote. Even in photos of her smiling, it’s hard to get much of a sense of this personality whose wry sense of humor and fearlessness imbue all her stories. With Wildcat, we gain a clearer perspective of Flannery O’Connor the writer, who must champion her own work with a ferocity unfamiliar to writers of more conventional fiction of that time, and the loneliness she feels among her peers who rush to correct the political incorrectness of characters who aren’t right, but are nonetheless real. We also get a more complete picture of her desire for love and understanding. In the film, O’Connor harbors an unrequited yet seemingly mutual affection for Robert “Cal” Lowell (Philip Ettinger). I don’t know how much of this is historically/ biographically accurate, but true or not, Lowell’s character in the film could serve as a composite of several thwarted relationships O’Connor had with men. It seems that she finally came to terms with the frustrations and hurt through absolute commitment to her art, especially in the wake of her lupus diagnosis and the knowledge that she was destined to die young. In fact, that’s another aspect of O’Connor’s life brought into sharp focus in Wildcat: anxiety about impending death.
3. This film goes beyond the label of “biopic” in its treatment of the subject and her work.
While the cinematic narrative addresses the biographical, it immediately delves directly into the art itself, with Maya Hawke and Laura Linney playing the author and her mother in addition to other characters from O’Connor’s stories. O’Connor herself says in the film, “I only feel like myself when I’m writing,” and Hawke’s performance of O’Connor as well as the fictional characters (not all of them female) is diamond-sharp and spot-on. O’Connor’s imagination is in overdrive as she wanders through a New York house party, seeing stills of the vivid activity flowing around her, as if witnessing moments in time bursting with the potential of being transformed into literature. With the long train ride from the cosmopolitan New York literary scene to the more provincial environs of central Georgia, during which signs of her lupus manifests, O’Connor shortly discovers that the opportunities she feared missing by having to stay home on the farm have in fact traveled south with her. Inspiration is all around, so she adheres to a strict schedule, rearranges her room to minimize distractions and sets to creating some of the most memorable fiction of the twentieth century, timeless and universal, out of things happening in her own backyard. In Wildcat, life and art blend seamlessly into a complex series of juxtapositions and reflections, separate vignettes skillfully woven together into one compelling narrative about the author’s spiritual and creative evolution.
4. Maya Hawkes performance is amazing.
Hawkes’ portrayal of Flannery O’Connor is a portrait in toughness and tenderness, from facing down a reluctant publisher who suggests she go with a more conventional narrative in her novel, Wise Blood, to her deep affection for Lowell. The scenes where she and Lowell banter about matters both literary and personal are some of the few instances where her vulnerability is on full display. Another key instance of this is O’Connor’s emotional conversation with her priest (Liam Neeson), about her feelings and fears concerning the looming prospect of death. Eventually, her acceptance of Lowell’s impending marriage to a lovely New York blonde, and of her own mortality, free her to fully inhabit the world of her uncompromising fiction. Maya Hawkes embodies Flannery O’Connor the writer, the woman, and the daughter of another strong-willed woman: Regina Cline O’Connor (Laura Linney). Shades of their complicated, occasionally prickly relationship are revealed in the biographical parts of the film, while hidden aspects possibly surface in the fiction (especially in “Good Country People”). O’Connor turned a jaundiced eye toward a certain type of women a bit too sure of their place in the world, as well sheltered youth fresh from the halls of traditional academe. None are spared pain, doubt nor confusion (though in the case of Manley Pointer in “Good Country People,” that’s debatable). In a scene from “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” the liberal-leaning son of a middle-aged woman is alternately amused and horrified at his mother’s embarrassment and paternalistic racism on a city bus ride and the subsequent encounter with a black woman and her young son. Julian’s reaction ranges from schadenfreude to pity at the outcome. Things are rarely cut and dried in Flannery O’Connor’s fictional universe, and Maya Hawkes “gets” both O’Connor’s complexity and multi-faceted interpretation of events surrounding her in her time.
5. Laura Linney’s performance is amazing.
Like Maya Hawke, Laura Linney portrays multiple characters in addition to that of Regina, including Mrs. Hopewell from “Good Country People,” and Mrs. Turpin from “Revelation.” As Regina O’Connor, Linney embodies the southern woman of that era for whom a priority is keeping up appearances, which extends even to her daughter when Regina keeps the doctor’s diagnosis from Flannery herself, for fear of making things worse. Flannery resist Regina’s admonishments to rest rather than wear herself out writing, but even in Flannery’s resistance is evidence that she also recognizes her mother’s concern. Her acceptance of Regina’s love for her, even as she pushes back against it, is familiar to mothers and daughters everywhere. The “Jesus scene” within the exploration of “Revelation,” a short story about a woman who sees herself as a very good person, near the top of the social hierarchy, is visually stunning, over the top, and exemplifies much of the controversy surrounding O’Connor’s work. It’s also why she is often seen as a “problematic author,” even with a long list of literary accolades to her name. The choice Jesus presents to Mrs. Turpin, use of the “n-word,” and Mrs. Turpin’s anxious response, is a reflection of O’Connor’s time and place. To pretend that such debates, internal and external, didn’t or don’t occur, is a denial of history and reality, and O’Connor did not shy away from unpleasant truths that, even as her publisher claims early on, make things uncomfortable for her readers. Offering comfort, cover, and escape from reality was of no interest for O’Connor, and not the purpose nor aim of her fiction. If, as Shakespeare is quoted as saying, the purpose of art is to hold the mirror up to life, Flannery O’Connor does it with a steely, gaze. What we see looking back forces us to assess our relationship with society, ourselves, and most importantly, with God.
It's not easy to hear nor see much of what happens in the fiction of Flannery O’Connor, but it isn’t supposed to be. O’Connor had her own tough reality to face, but she did it with dignity and courage. Like Flannery O’Connor, we can’t know what we’re made of until we’re tested. That’s the only way to find out how any of us would fare staring down the barrel of the Misfit’s gun—or whether we’d be the ones holding it.
Here’s a link to the official trailer for Wildcat.
For an excellent documentary about Flannery O’Connor, watch Uncommon Grace, a film by Bridgit Kurt, filled with fascinating facts, and commentary by O’Connor scholars and experts. Here’s a link to the web site.
You can read my interview with Bridget following her first festival win for Best Documentary here at Deep South Magazine.
If you’re interested in more about Flannery O’Connor, click here read to read my short piece in Deep South about the “Flannery and Fashion” exhibit at Andalusia Farm, and my interview with Elizabeth Wylie, former executive director of Andalusia Farm here.