Something Wild (1986)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Rewatching Something Wild recently some 30 years after I first saw it, I was struck by how vividly the craziness of the story stayed in my memory, but also how surprising and unexpected the plot turns were. This is a good sign that that someone took time to craft an excellent plot. In fact, the film makers have lavished tender loving care on every aspect of this film and given it a lot of heart.Melanie Griffith does everything but set the screen on fire as she takes Jeff Daniel's humdrum office worker life and turns it upside down. We're then taken on a helter-skelter anything-goes trip where the couple leave the city and the staid conventions of middle class life behind as they plunge into a passionate affair and journey deep into the comforting familiarity of small town America with its motels, folksy shops and and kindly people. Ironically this is where the greatest danger lurks in the shape of old flame Ray Liotta, grinning maniacally and flipping the madcap whimsy into insane violence.Every minor character on this trip fills you with good vibes, in sharp contrast to the sinister kind of twist that current-day Hollywood mainstream gives to bit players. The soundtrack, for fans of 80s music, is fantastic - you're bound to hear stuff you haven't heard for ages.This film works on many levels: the actors are charming and charismatic, and their parts are well and sympathetically written. It's a loving memoir of a materialistic decade that many thought was money-obsessed but was filled with many hapless characters like this reviewer who lived similar episodes in their own lives: except not so wild!

This exhilarating comedy thriller about a straight-laced businessman who gets kidnapped, seduced and corrupted by a sexy stranger is fast-moving, offbeat and quite subversive. It's great fun to see how quickly the guy's latent rebelliousness gets liberated by being exposed to some wild, reckless and impulsive behaviour, but everything has its price and soon it becomes apparent that his pursuit of freedom is taking him ever deeper into the dark side.Charlie Driggs (Jeff Daniels) is an uptight yuppie who walks out of a New York diner without paying and out on the street, gets challenged about his actions by a young woman called Lulu (Melanie Griffith). He's relieved when he realises that she doesn't work at the diner but was simply a customer who saw what he did. He accepts her offer of a lift back to his office but she immediately sets off on a high-speed joyride, throws his pager out of the window and drinks at the wheel. She persuades him to share some booze with her en route and then drives to a cheap motel where she handcuffs Charlie to a bed and seduces him.After Charlie contacts his boss to make his excuses for not being at work, the couple continue their carefree journey and Lulu sets Charlie up to leave another restaurant without paying before taking him to visit her mother, Peaches (Dana Preu). Lulu confesses that her real name is Audrey and Charlie plays along when she says that he's her new husband. Audrey's change of name coincides with a remarkable physical transformation as she goes from being a brunette bedecked in lots of colourful jewellery to a blonde who's dressed far more conventionally.All the lying they did when they visited Peaches continues when the couple go to Audrey's high school reunion and share an invented history of their time together with some of Audrey's contemporaries. The whole mood changes dramatically, however, when Audrey's husband Ray (Ray Liotta) appears. He's a violent criminal who's recently been released from prison and is clearly not happy when he sees Audrey with Charlie. The events that follow gradually lead from a violent crime spree to numerous other unpredictable developments that becomes increasingly dangerous for everyone involved."Something Wild" is an extraordinary and highly unconventional movie with a plot which follows a trajectory that no-one could reasonably predict from what happens in the opening scene. Its wonderful combination of comedy, romance and violent crime creates situations where the atmosphere changes drastically at various points and the fact that these changes take place so naturally and logically is obviously attributable to the considerable skill of director Jonathan Demme and the excellent performances from Melanie Griffith and Jeff Daniels who reflect so seamlessly the changes that their characters go through. Ray Liotta is also fantastic as Audrey's psychotic husband who's actually even scarier when he's being charming because the sheer strength of his innate rage is always so visible.This movie's refreshing originality and unpredictability combined with its humour, terrific music and marvellous characters make it highly enjoyable and truly exceptional.

After seeing this movie on my VCR after it came out, I'm not surprised this film failed to find its movie-going audience. It's simply a very difficult movie to classify, which is why I liked it so much, and why I applaud what Demme did in this film. It starts out as a screwball comedy, with very hip and funny lines. But once the Ray Liotta character is introduced, it becomes very dark, chilling, and scary. How many films have EVER been successfully made like this? Not very many. I always found "Heathers" to be somewhat similar to "Something Wild" in this regard, but "Heathers" is not as good as this one.The characters in "Something Wild" are extremely well-written, especially Jeff Daniels, who likes to call people by the name on their name tags. Melanie Griffith is both sexy and hilarious, and Ray Liotta is scary! All in all, if you haven't seen this movie, it's worth watching although it is also a shock to the system.

Newly promoted vice-president Charles Driggs meets free-spirited "Lulu" after cheating a restaurant for fun.Lulu offers a ride for him in her convertible but she "abducts" Charles and they go to a motel in New Jersey, where they spend the night together.Next morning, she heads to her hometown in Pennsylvania to spend the weekend with Charlie. When they arrive in her mother's home, she discloses her real name - "Audrey Hankel" - to him and she tells her mother that Charlie is her husband.They go to her high school reunion posing as husband and wife.But Audrey's ex-husband Ray Sinclair that has just been released from prison on parole meets her in the party.After a while, Ray becomes violent, he hits Charlie, and he kidnaps Audrey. But Charlie does not intend to give up on her...Having not seen this movie for over twenty years, i did not know what to expect, as I was young then, and didn't really get the connotations.While it still feels freah today and highly original, one cannot help but think that it takes a while to get going.The first act is the zany comedy, and it really hits you as much as it does Charlie, what is happening to him, and why? The second act is the romance, as soon as Griffith changes her hair, it changes her personality and the personality of the film.And then once we are introduced to Ray, the film turns dark instantly. I have never seen an entrance by a character that can change a films atmosphere in literally a second. One moment, you feel like Charlie is finally getting the upper hand in life, and then Liotta changes everything Liotta is easily the best thing about this film, as his cold glare and psychopathic tendencies really make this film something else. If somebody had left the room for twenty minutes and came, they would honestly think they were watching a different movie.Daniels and Griffith are fun, and really make the film more endearing, but it does sometimes feel mixed up and a little schizophrenic.But the film can never be called boring, because it does entertain, especially seeing and pointing out all the cameos.