Wild Honey Pie!
World Premiere, SXSW – Alamo Lamar, March 12, 2018
Review by Stacey Lovett
Director Jamie Adams has the ability to portray all of the facets of human relationships with truthful accuracy in his films and really explores that of romantic relationships with Wild Honey Pie.
The film opens with Gillian (Jemima Kirke) and Oliver’s (Richard Elis) exploration of the atmosphere that represents the artist’s dream and the place where opportunity should and could fit into it. Adams shows them dealing with the ordinary idiosyncrasies of marriage and portrays the everyday view of a long-standing relationship from the void of physical boundaries in the household to the sarcastic quips fired between them. He also isn’t afraid to represent the stagnation that is often hidden from the public view and how the truth behind the reality crafts the relations and situations in and outside of a couple’s connection. He holds a great understanding of and aptly portrays the opposing way men and women conceive and perceive situations in life, and showing the intimate details of their interactions connects the audience with the characters, truly bringing the human element to his narrative.
In the throes of their seven-year itch, these lack of boundaries begins to creep outside their relationship into that of their professional one, creating their own melodrama in the world of drama they work in. As they’re forced to make some big changes on the professional front, their personal relationship falls into these two oppositions. New interests and focus enter their lives and inadvertently create separate triptychs of character relationships to follow as the energy of their bond becomes dispersed. There is a great authenticity, often uncomfortably accurate, that Jamie Adams explores in his characters and Wild Honey Pie speaks to the strength and importance that integrity, ambition, and passion in life – both personally and professionally – that quite often wavers to some degree as represented.
The viewer actively engages in where agreement lies among all of the characters – with it often wavering among them – and it parallels the constant judgments and choices we have to make on both sides of the matter. We, in turn, are forced into our own relationships with the menagerie of people and face our own choices of what feels right and what actually is. The film is just as much if not more of a focus on these human relations and their story simply exists to highlight this view even more.
Adams does an extraordinary job crafting this viewpoint, presenting an uncertain exploration of an atmosphere representative to some aspect for every audience member just through our own nature of being. The interconnectedness of characters in Wild Honey Pie leaves the interpretation of the situations largely up to the viewer and the manner it’s portrayed creates an entertaining division of perspective throughout and after viewing the film.