Rent Wakefield (2016)

Wakefield review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Wakefield has a certain edge for being a one-man show of suburban survival and contemplation. Bryan Cranston plays Howard Wakefield, a typical businessman who commutes from his suburban home to the city. He has a wife he has grown distant from and a life he no longer recognizes. He wants to retreat into his own mind, to escape from everything and better analyze his own life. But he doesn’t do so by running away to a change in the landscape. He instead takes it's upon himself to hide near his home and observe what happens when he never comes home.

This is essentially an experiment by Howard, trying to both better understand himself and how others will view him when he is gone. He takes refuge in a hidden attic above his garage and watches what transpires in his house from the window. At first, there’s a giddiness watching her squirm and how quickly others react. He makes up dialogue in his head about what he thinks they’re talking about and goes back and forth in his mind about how he feels he should reenter his life. But he keeps hidden and keeps watching. Watching from afar is both intriguing to watch how quickly his wife will move on and terrifying in thinking that his life will merely crumble if he goes back.

Howard does make a few secret friends in his attic setting when some mentally disabled children discover him. They keep his new residency a secret but the film thankfully never loses its focus by keeping things highly cerebral. Even during scenes where Howard is just having fun and teaching the kids about the various items of the attic, we’re still getting his introspective words about how he views himself and his world. These thoughts linger between bitterness for being tossed aside and depressing paranoia about how he is seen by everyone. We get flashbacks, past joys, regrets, infidelity. All of this is served up as ingredients for his stew of quiet madness that he has created for himself.

Wakefield is a movie that meanders around and, like a dumpster diver, occasionally finds something good in its mess of voice-over narration. It’s the little aspects I believe that draw the most allure for the shift in perspective. During the final stages of his isolation, Howard ventures out into the city with a car and thinks about how strange it is to be bound by the rules of society once more. He is both curious and saddened to learn of a new man potentially in his wife’s life, especially when it’s someone he happens to know. There’s a distrust for the world and himself, leading him to question just how he should reenter the world and what he should carry with him as his life continues if he even wants to continue it at all.

The sardonic approach to this type of story more or less works for giving the mind much to chew on in its quiet nature. The suburban dysfunction and unfulfillment is approached with a gentle sensation that slowly washes away most of the cynicism. While I feel the film meanders a bit too much here and there, there’s an undeniable attraction in the somewhat Dogme 95 presentation that takes a thought-provoking route. At the very least, I did enjoy the film’s ending which, after much contemplation, realizes that all one can do is consider all thoughts but not be afraid to take a step forward. And when Howard finally does take that step, it resonates rather well.