Female Film Critics 24/375
In The Art of Adventure, director Alison Reid (The Woman Who Loved Giraffes) tells the globe-trotting tale of Robert Bateman and Bristol Foster, two longtime Canadian friends whose shared passion for nature and drive to see the world beyond North America led them on an 18-month odyssey across 50,000 miles and 19 countries in the late 1950s — and, later, fueled their careers as passionate stewards of the environment.
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Zoe Kazan isn’t particularly surprised by some of the criticism that some have leveled at the main female character in Wildlife, the acclaimed period drama she penned with her partner, Paul Dano. “I think some of the criticism about ‘Oh, is she unlikable? Is she unsympathetic?’ feels really misplaced to me. It feels like it has more to do with the way we as a society think about who and what a mother should be and what a wife should be than it is really about this character,” Kazan comments.
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A first-time screenwriter, Dano, known for his performances in “There Will Be Blood,” “Love & Mercy” and “Little Miss Sunshine,” adapted “Wildlife” alongside his actress/screenwriter partner Zoe Kazan (“The Big Sick,” “Ruby Sparks”) from Richard Ford’s 1990 novel about thoughtful teenager Joe Brinson, who watches his parents’ marriage unravel shortly after the family’s move in 1960 to small-town Montana.
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Jake Gyllenhaal and Ed Oxenbould deliver fine performances, but Wildlife is the Carey Mulligan show. Her old friend Paul Dano has given her a present, which she graciously gifts him back with one of the towering performances of her career.
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