Something Wild looks at first like it’s going to be a typical tale of an uptight guy (Jeff Daniels) who blossoms when his life is upended by a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (Melanie Griffith), but Jonathan Demme’s film keeps raising the stakes. When Lulu (Daniels) drags Charlie (Daniels) along for a joyride that turns into an extended road trip, Charlie is initially bewildered/terrified/agog at his good fortune. But Lulu has an agenda of her own: she’s actually a suburban gal named Audrey who needs a respectable date for her high-school reunion.
It’s at the reunion that the movie takes a darker turn, as Audrey’s violent ex-husband, Ray (Ray Liotta, in his starmaking role) shows up and tries to reclaim her. A crime-spree that’s a hellish mirror image of the initial road trip follows. Charlie has to decide how far he’s willing to go, and how much of his stable, respectable life he’s willing to sacrifice, in order to take Audrey back from Ray.
A lot of what happens here, as in the more light-hearted, contemporaneous movie Desperately Seeking Susan, is an exercise in style masquerading as a clash of values, but the increasingly life-or-death stakes make Something Wild hard to shake. As events at the reunion suggest, everyone is putting on a show for the crowd while trying to keep darker impulses hidden.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeYXj1aJNos]