Wild Rose: Too Formulaic for Its Own Good (SPOILERS)
Tom Harper seems to be 2/2 in 2019 in making bad films, and Wild Rose takes the cake at being the worst out of the two. At least the tolerably boring The Aeronauts had pretty visual effects and tension-filled scenes to piss your pants in. Wild Rose takes an already familiar story and does nothing new and/or originial with it, even if its lead stars are terrific. Fresh out of prison, Rose-Lynn Harlan (Jessie Buckley) wants to make it as a country star in Nashville, Tennessee, but the only job she can find is a housekeeper in the house of a wealthy woman named Susannah (Sophie Okonedo) who tries to push her career of being a singer, ignoring the fact that she is a single mother and was an ex-convict. The film tells, beat-for-beat, the story of how Rose-Lynn overcomes those “inner deamons”, her past and her ailing relationship with her mother (Julie Walters) as she becomes a better person through music.
The biggest problem Tom Harper initially sets-up in Wild Rose is how unlikeable the protagonist is. It’s one of the most frustrating aspects of the entire film, as Harper tries everything in his power to make us root for her, when she befriends Susannah and she tries everything to make her career succeed, by booking her in a radio interview on the BBC or forcing her to sing at a party in which people will sell into her. These are the times in the movie where we’re supposed to root for Rose-Lynn to succeed, but how can we? She’s an ex-convict who doesn’t really care about her children (as it is shown multiple times in the film she can’t present authority and lead her children, it has to be the grandmother doing all the work) and even tries to escape her miserable life in Glasgow, Scotland, to the United States only to cloud her own problems and forget the children she had. When she tells Susannah about everything and actually takes responsibility for once in her life, it’s too late.
There’s no real progression between the egotistical, stuck-up Rose-Lynn and the dedicated mother, Rose-Lynn. Only a trip to Nashville that adds nothing to her characterization will try to make the audience feel for her, even though it does nothing to the entire film aside from a couple of fun cameos from Kacey Musgraves and Ashley McBryde. If I was the producer, I would’ve cut it. There’s no way to say it. I would’ve made sure the progression happens naturally, not a life-changing event that immidiately makes Rose-Lynn a better person, but real, humane, events that realizes what she’s done. You don’t feel any compassion when her son, Lyle (Adam Mitchell), brakes his arm, as she is too ignorant to realize the responsibility she has. Even if Jessie Buckley’s performance as an egotistical character “with a dream” is great, I couldn’t emotionally attach myself to her, because she exemplifies the tropes and clichés of an egotistical character who doesn’t seem to care about what’s revolving around her, who suddenly wakes up, with no progression, and realizes exactly what she’s done beautifully.
I loved Julie Walters more than Buckley in this because her character progressed naturally, meaning she actually has time to evolve, and doesn’t need a life-changing moment to immidiately change her ways. We see, in her facial expressions, once she understands how important Nashville is for Rose-Lynn, the expression of regret and humility are shown. Walters is a fantastic facial actress, but her verbal pronounciation is also fantastically executed alongside the hackneyed-script. Both Buckley and Walters are the saving graces of this movie, alongside some good-looking cinematography and a passable enough supporting performance from Sophie Okonedo. The problem with Wild Rose is its formulaic structure and its frustrating so-called “character development” makes it impossible for me to actively like the movie. “But how about the song Glasgow?” you ask? Well, let’s just say I already forgot the song existed.
✯✯
