DREAMIN' WILD - Mark Reviews Movies

Dreamin' Wild, Roadside Attractions

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 3, 2023

On the surface, Dreamin' Wild is the story of a dream unexpectedly coming true long after any hope of that happening has been lost. It probably should make us feel inspired and optimistic, and while writer/director Bill Pohlad should get some credit for attempting to dig deeper than such superficialities, the filmmaker seems to become stuck in the emotional hole he has dug for this material.

The story here is based on the true one of brothers Donnie and Joe Emerson, who grew up on a farm in Washington state, discovered a love for music, and spent their free time writing, playing, and recording songs in a homemade studio. They even pressed a full album, which didn't sell, obviously, because the marketing was essentially the brothers and their family members telling people they knew that it existed. After various professional and financial setbacks, the two brothers basically resigned themselves to the realization that any hope of a successful music career was finished before it even started.

That's where Pohlad's movie, based on an article by Steven Kurutz, enters the story. About 30 years later, Donnie (Casey Affleck) runs a recording studio with his wife Nancy (Zooey Deschanel) in Spokane, and the two play the occasional gig at wedding receptions and other such venues. The business is drying up fast, and Donnie is certain they'll be shutting down operations soon, although his father Don Sr. (Beau Bridges), who has supported his younger son in his ambitions this whole time, is willing to borrow more from the bank to keep Donnie's passion afloat.

Meanwhile, Joe (Walton Goggins) is still on the family farm, living in a house that he built himself on the property. He hasn't sat at a drum kit in a long while, but he's relatively content, since Joe always has known it was his younger brother's talent and drive that got the two anywhere in music. He just wants his family to be as happy as they can under the current circumstances.

All of this rings true, and of course, this story isn't going to keep these characters in this state of scraping-by stasis for long. Filmmakers rarely make movies about everyday people struggling to maintain some kind of life without some sort of complication or windfall arriving, and here, the news becomes both of those things for the family.

It's the arrival of Matt Sullivan (Chris Messina), a producer for an independent record label out of Seattle, at the farm in 2011. He has heard the brothers' album from decades ago and absolutely adores it. In the intervening years, the record—that shares the title of the movie, naturally—has gained an underground following after a random collector started spreading word of it to everyone he knew. Matt is convinced a re-pressing of the album could sell well, and the only things the Emersons have to do is agree to the idea and wait hopefully for the money to start coming.

What's fascinating about Pohlad's approach is how it avoids the obvious. Most of the story takes place on the farm, as Donnie keeps visiting to meet with Matt, conduct interviews with various reporters, and reminisce about his time as a teenager with endless confidence in his talent and big hopes for his future. There are a series of flashbacks to a younger Donnie (played by Noah Jupe) and a younger Joe (played by Jack Dylan Grazer), as they write and record these songs, have a couple of doomed romances, and wonder just how far they'll be able to go, while still keeping up with their chores on the farm.

Something went wrong, obviously, although it's not nearly as dramatic as the build-up by way of these loaded flashbacks might suggest. Basically, it's exactly what it seems to be: Donnie set out on his own, with the financial support of his father, and didn't make it. With unlikely success immediately in sight, Donnie spends his days now moping around the farm, seeing his younger self, and wallowing in the guilt of just how much support Don Sr. offered him with results that became a net loss for the entire family.

The whole process feels static, and at no point here is there any sense of joy for the good fortune that has befallen the family or love for the music that got them to this point—no matter how late it may have arrived. The tone of the movie is fully defined by Donnie's hangdog attitude, and while it theoretically adds a refreshing spin on what easily could have become a formulaic tale, Pohlad goes overboard.

The character's guilt and resentment makes him seem more ungrateful for this happy twist of fate than anything else. As solid as Goggins and Bridges are in their more pragmatically positive roles, the brother and the father don't come near to providing a balance to Donnie's brooding demeanor and increasingly frustrated behavior.

Affleck's performance is fine, in that he communicates these regrets and irritations in a believably subdued way, but what's the point of watching someone achieve his dream, only to be sour about it and everything that has led up to this point? Dreamin' Wild never answers that question.

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