Movie Review: 'Dreamin' Wild'

Dreamin' Wild (2023)

Directed by Bill Pohlad

Written by Bill Pohlad

Starring Casey Affleck, Zooey Deschanel, Walton Goggins, Beau Bridges

Release Date August 4th, 2023

Published August 1st, 2023

The story of Donnie Emerson is a remarkable one. In the 1970s, he and his brother, Joe, made a record. It got recorded and it was made available on vinyl and everything. It appeared that Donnie, if not Joe, had a bright future ahead of him as a singer songwriter. Circumstances conspired and Donnie never found stardom. Then, in 2008, a copy of Donnie and Joe's album, Dreamin' Wild, was found by a man in Spokane, Washington. He made it his mission to get the record to as many people as possible. The efforts of this man, Jack Fleischer, brought the record to the attention of Light in the Attic records, an indie label that managed to track down Donnie and Joe.

In an improbable twist of fate, Dreamin' Wild, their 1978 record, found a new life. Donnie began a second act as a respected and revered singer songwriter and now, writer-director Bill Pohlad has brought the amazing story of Donnie, Joe and their family to the big screen in Dreamin' Wild. It's an inherently cinematic underdog story but the typical elements aren't as interesting to Pohlad as the inner turmoil of Donnie Emerson, a man who was racked with guilt over the failure of his music career and struggled with intense mistrust, insecurity and fear over trying to once again live his dream.

Casey Affleck stars in Dreamin' Wild as Donnie Emerson. A father of two, Donnie's recording studio is struggling to stay afloat. Donnie and his wife, Nancy (Zooey Deschanel) support their family and business by playing covers at weddings and other small venue events. Donnie is facing an uncertain future when this random phone call changes everything. Matt Sullivan (Chris Messina), a record company flack for Light in the Attic Records has moved mountains trying to find Donnie and his brother, Joe (Walton Goggins).

Somewhere in Montana, someone found a copy of a record called Dreamin' Wild. The record was recorded by the Emerson Brothers in 1978 and it had been mostly a failure. It did lead to Donnie briefly getting a record deal and traveling to Los Angeles, but he soon ended up back home. That's a story that we will eventually uncover as Dreamin' Wild lays out its story. For the moment, it's nothing but good news for Donnie's family, including his loving and supportive father, Don Sr. (Beau Bridges). The only one who seems reticent about this sudden new discovery is Donnie.

For Donnie, the rediscovery of Dreamin' Wild rips open old wounds from when he was a young man and trying to make it as a musician. I won't go into details about that, as that makes up the dramatic crux of Dreamin' Wild. Instead, I want to take a moment to praise young Noah Jupe who plays the young, idealistic Donnie. Jupe is a wonderful young talent who captures the excitement and insecurity of a young artist on the cusp of something big. Jupe and Jack Dylan Grazer, who plays young Joe, are a terrific pair whose dynamic is wonderfully mirrored by the grown up performances of Casey Affleck and Walton Goggins.

Dreamin' Wild is yet another thoughtful, enigmatic, and fascinating take on music stardom from writer-director Bill Pohlad. His 2014 film, Love & Mercy, is the definitive take on the life, hardship and genius of Beach Boys star Brian Wilson. That film, like Dreamin' Wild, captured the young, bright eyed genius of a young musician experiencing the heady highs of creation and the beginning of stardom and the sad aftermath of a troubled adult existence, haunted by various demons. Donnie Emerson is not known to have gotten into drugs but he was troubled by his own demons that altered his life and carried on from youth into the adult he became.

Pohlad has a thoughtful and empathetic approach to telling these stories that doesn't shy away from those troubles but approaches them from a very human, often quite sad perspective. That said, the movies themselves aren't sad, perhaps melancholic, but not sad. That's because in both cases, Love & Mercy and Dreamin' Wild, the music, the creation of art, is filled with joy. Troubled artists channeling their troubles into life altering art is a joyous catharsis that, though it doesn't solve their problems, it's part of a journey of confronting those problems and finding a way to wrestle with them, come to terms with them and begin to heal.

That's part of the joy of music and movies. That journey from struggle, through strife, to joy and triumph. Triumph is perhaps an overstatement, but it can take many different forms. Just surviving a big emotional storm can be a form of triumph. Both movies and music capture these major and minor triumphs and transform them into universal human experiences expressed with art. Bill Pohlad beautifully marries the mediums of movies and music by examining the flawed, human heart that drives so much of the great art we love. He's not the only director to do this but he's made two incredible movies about musicians that demonstrate his knack for getting to the heart of this marriage of mediums.

The elephant in the room must be addressed. Casey Affleck, the star of Dreamin' Wild, has been accused of horrible things. I've not looked close enough, nor am I familiar enough with Affleck's behavior to offer any thoughts on the veracity of these claims. He's denied them, there appears to be some credible evidence out there, but I don't have enough information to make an informed judgment. I do know that Affleck is quite a good actor and delivers a complex and deeply felt performance in Dreamin' Wild. I will leave it to you to determine whether you want to support his work based on your own feelings about him as a person. As a film critic, I admire the movie Dreamin' Wild.

Find my archive of more than 20 years and nearly 2000 movie reviews at SeanattheMovies.blogspot.com. Find my modern review archive on my Vocal Profile, linked here. Follow me on Twitter at PodcastSean. Follow the archive blog on Twitter at SeanattheMovies. Listen to me talk about movies on the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast. If you have enjoyed what you have read, consider subscribing to my writing here on Vocal. If you'd like to support my writing, you can do so here on Vocal by making a monthly pledge or by leaving a one-time tip.

New effort: I am now accepting movie review requests. For a $10.00 donation to my Ko-Fi account, I will write about the movie of your choice. I cannot promise whether the review will be positive or negative, but I can promise to make it as entertaining and informative as possible. All donations will go to support my first book project called Horror in the 90s. It's a thorough and exhaustive examination of the horror genre in the pivotal final decade of the 20th century. I am currently serializing pieces from the book on Horror.Media so you can sample the work you are supporting with your donation on Ko-Fi. Thanks!