When approaching a subject like Flannery O’Connor for a biopic, I’m sure Ethan Hawke realized early that it wouldn’t be so dramatic a story played straight. Especially given many of the acclaimed Southern writer’s best-known works were composed and published in the last fourteen years of her all too short life, in which she spent most of her time housebound due to her debilitating lupus. Not the kind of context that makes for a riveting character study, especially for somebody who already seemed to be a fairly insular person -her inspiration heavily observational and faith-based, and her time away in the north marked by merely one disappointing romantic prospect.
And so, it’s the work that Hawke decides to focus on in Wildcat -his tribute to O’Connor; simultaneously adapting the details of her early career and move back to Georgia, alongside snapshots -borne out of her creativity and unique perception of the world- of several of the stories that she wrote, including Wise Blood, the novel she is attempting to publish and for which she has received push-back over her unconventional method not to outline. That strict habit of not particularly planning the stories but just letting them come to her is very much present throughout the movie's structure.
Wildcat is also curious as a passion project for both Hawke and its star, his daughter Maya -who have demonstrated over this movie's press a very charming relationship and complimentary artistic sensibilities. The fact that by their dedication, O'Connor and her work clearly means something personal to both, which combined with the presence of known friends of Hawke's, like Laura Linney, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Steve Zahn (all of whom also featured in The Last Movie Stars) and his wife as a producer, gives the movie overall the feel of an almost Coppola-esque family project in service of spotlighting a mutually admired subject.
A subject whose work Hawke can't resist adapting on its own terms through sustained stretches of the movie that play out the plots of stories like "The Life You Save May Be Your Own", "Good Country People", and "Everything That Rises Must Converge" (one that curiously is not included is the titular "Wildcat"), featuring Maya Hawke and Linney in the substantial parts of each one -presumably as Flannery's reflections of herself and her mother Regina, whom Linney plays in the film's main throughline. And for coming to life somewhat arbitrarily in that standard biopic trope of the 'random inspiration for great art', they are integrated fairly well, pointedly interspersed within the main narrative while more often than not make for solid little films of their own.
At the very least, they are for those unfamiliar, a good showcase of O’Connor’s style and themes of interest, arising out of her own view of the world that Hawke explores deftly. Of particular note is her staunch Catholicism and the role of faith in both her life and art. Yet it is very atypical of the popular strain of southern Christianity, which we see in the distinctions between her and her family -far more of that alienating evangelical brand where Flannery is more introspective, more interested in questions of morality. It’s why her stories aren’t very popular with them and it’s what puts her at odds with the bigotry of her mother, which also finds expression in her work. Yet Hawke is careful to show Flannery’s sympathy for these figures, as well as those characteristics that isolate her from her northern contemporaries. While in Iowa at a party, she takes great offence to a unanimous dismissal of the Eucharist, and later gets into an argument over her use of the n-word in her writing, insisting it is her refusal to sugarcoat the reality of who her characters are and how they speak. Fiction as a window into reality is her driving creative philosophy, as Hawke emphasizes by placing a quote to that effect at the front of the film.
Embodying this spirit fully, Maya Hawke is terrific in her first true leading role, effectively conveying the cadence, demeanor, the accent and affect of this unusual young woman a step out of time. And true to O'Connor's own convictions, it is a performance that is grounded and honest beyond the immediate pale, but likewise in the sense of openness and curiosity that motivates the character. It's a mark of Hawke genuinely following in her parents' footsteps as more than a nepo baby movie star but an interesting, dynamic actor; I can see her becoming a real indie darling.
Meanwhile, the elder Hawke's direction continues to develop as he casts the film in a dreary sheen reflective of where O'Connor comes from and the bleakness of the world that she sees, yet with little touches of brightness. On the religious themes, it is clear he has borrowed influence from Paul Schrader and some of the filmmakers he in turn draws upon, yet employs them with a more notable subtlety -most of Flannery's comments come out in the whirlwind of her stories. These segments are where he endeavours to make the film a little more fun, like in the melodrama of his minute adaption of "Parker's Back" in which a woman's lover tries to impress her by tattooing Christ on his back; or the spiritual epiphany Flannery envisions for her mother in a snippet of "Revelation". He also begins the film with a mock 1950s movie trailer for a vague O'Connor story -both a neat stylistic exercise and itself another interpretation of how his subject may have viewed her work.
But this sequence does forecast in its way the artifice of the film, which comes through in spite of Hawke's best efforts in several scenes of Flannery's college and home life. Perhaps it is the intent to draw her real life itself in the parameters of her stories, with its own melodramatic tendencies of dialogue and characterization; but in such a context it can feel dull at times -conversations with family that forcefully turn to politics or her sickness, the cheapness of her early love interest introducing her to his wife. The deliberate paleness of the cinematography can make such beats even more dismal.
Nevertheless, Maya carries Flannery through these and the limitations of the film's expression of her inner life otherwise. And the style that her father chooses for the presentation is creative and intuitive. I admire the way he figured it to both tell the story of and the stories by this author in sync, making for a solid and heartfelt tribute that skirts formula and celebrates the relationship between art and artist -the defining trait if there is one of Ethan Hawke the filmmaker thus far.
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