Starring Melanie Griffith, Jeff Daniels and Ray Liotta
Written by E Max Frye
Directed by Jonathan Demme
Production year 1986
Running Time 113 Minutes
Charlie
Driggs is a straight-laced banker who leads a dull and ordinary life
until he happens to meet Lulu - a freewheeling wild child who takes him
on a series of adventures and a perilous encounter with her past. This
smart, sexy comedy was one of a number of films from the 1980s in which
yuppies found themselves in trouble and out of their comfort zone. Other
examples include Scorsese's After Hours and John Landis' Into The
Night.
Something
Wild was directed by Jonathan Demme, a graduate of the Roger Corman
expoitation school of filmmaking whose work includes perhaps the best
concert film ever made - Stop Making Sense (featuring Talking Heads) and
the delightful offbeat drama Melvin and Howard. Demme is probably best
known as a director for Silence Of The Lambs which won him an Academy
Award.
He
is a quirky, unusual talent who works as often in documentary as he
does in fiction and has a habit of blending comedy with edgy violence to
surprise and unsettle his audience.
Demme's
choice of music for this film is inspired - including tracks by Fine
Young Cannibals, Big Audio Dynamite, Jimmy Cliff, New Order and David
Byrne as well as several versions of Wild Thing.
Melanie
Griffith and Jeff Daniels are perfectly cast as the misfit couple of
Lulu and Charlie but the film is stolen by Ray Liotta in his first big
role. His chilling, charismatic performance as the ex from hell is
genuinely disturbing.
