WILD INSIDE – Review by Valerie Kalfrin
New Yorkers are a famously jaded bunch, to the point that when an owl with a six-foot wingspan wound up on the Fifth Avenue sidewalk one night, few seemed to give a hoot.
That all changed as the owl—a zoo escapee named Flaco—soon captured the hearts of people around the city and the world.
Director Penny Lane’s enchanting documentary Wild Inside follows Flaco through a fateful year of freedom after someone cut through his enclosure at the Central Park Zoo in February 2023. The male Eurasian eagle-owl—one of the largest types of owls in the world—had hatched in captivity and lived at the zoo for about thirteen years before he ventured through the cut mesh and into the spotlight.
At first barely able to fly, Flaco nevertheless eluded zoo officials who tried to snag him with a butterfly net or a baited trap. (The police weren’t much better, dropping a pet carrier next to him as if he’d obligingly hop inside.) Local birders feared for his safety and survival until, roughly a week later, he proved he could hunt. As public sentiment celebrated his tenacity—Late Night’s Seth Meyers even did a segment on the fluffy city dweller finding better digs—the zoo scrapped its efforts to catch him.
But was that wise? Flaco died a little over a year later, and there’s tension and poignancy among those who love watching him explore as they worry about rodenticide and other dangers.
Despite that, Wild Inside unfolds with alacrity, interspersing interviews with archive footage, drone shots that mimic Flaco’s flights, and a sprinkling of animation. Lane (Mrs. America) finds loads of charm and humor in the New Yorkers who wave, coo, and hoot back at Flaco, especially the exuberant group of wildlife photographers who track him at night, spurring people near and far to flock to his story (me included).
Flaco is unknowable, several experts say, not anthropomorphizing him despite his expressive ear tufts and beguiling orange eyes. Yet he’s a captivating subject, thrilling to watch as he flies, stretches, and creeps (a sight that is never not funny). Some saw him as a symbol of freedom and resilience, a fellow scrappy New Yorker adorning T-shirts and murals. Others just found a kinship in sharing updates and sightings from Central Park to the Lower East Side. Flaco hooted from water towers, possibly looking for love; napped on fire escapes; and peered into apartment windows. As one person notes, having spent much of his life on display, he seemed to like to look at us, too.
Some Flaco fans might have wanted Wild Inside to explore more of the aftermath of his death, specifically, proposed legislation about bird-friendly building design and rat control. Yet the film instead lands on a broader, more connective legacy. In his brief time roaming the urban jungle, this magnificent owl opened people’s eyes to a wider, wilder world, a place not just of pigeons and squirrels but coyotes, falcons, and more. The wonder of nature that Flaco inspired, Wild Inside seems to say, is always around us—we just have to stop and look.
