Meadowland (2015) New York Film Critics Series

Ariela is back with a look at the film MEADOWLAND at the New York Film Critics series.  

The film originally premiered back at the Tribeca Film Festival. On Monday the film had a special screening with  director Reed Morano and star and producer Olivia Wilde  talking to  Peter Travers from Rolling Stone and Ariela was there. Here's her report.

MEADOWLAND  opened in select theaters in NY and LA last Friday the 16th. I saw a screening of it on October 19th, put together by New York Film Critics.

MEADOWLAND tells the story, of what I imagine to be any parents worst nightmare, your child going missing. Olivia Wilde plays the mother(Sarah), and Luke Wilson plays the father(Phil). They both deal with the loss in their own ways. Phil, who is a cop, tries to find out what happened to their son, while also attending group therapy with others who have lost someone in their lives. (John Leguizamo plays one of the people in group) While Sarah, a teacher, is on lithium and becomes obsessed with a student of hers.

It seems weird to say I enjoyed this movie, since it's such a sad heartbreaking topic. You could really feel the pain these people must be feeling. The movie gives a good depiction on people dealing with grief. Not knowing what happened to their child, it's terrifying.

There was a Q&A after with the director, Reed Morano, and Olivia Wilde. One thing Olivia Wilde said is that she liked that her character wasn't necessarily likeable. She added that often movies portray women as being likeable..and she liked the fact that you didn't always like this woman. This is true, in some scenes you really want to yell "what is wrong with you??". It made me confused and sad at how disconnected Sarah and Phil became from each other, but I didn't pass judgement, because I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be dealing with that kind of pain.

One thing I want to know is, what's the story with the yellow hoodie? Sarah is often seen walking around at all hours of the night wearing a yellow hoodie. Was it yellow for a reason? Someone, I can't remember if it was the interviewer or even Morano or Wilde, did bring it up at the Q&A, but they didn't give an answer!

I recommend it. Go support female directors & see it at Village East Cinemas in NYC.