Wildcat is a grotesque movie, which is exactly what it should be. Directed by Ethan Hawke and starring Maya Hawke, it is the story of Flannery O’Connor told with the help of her own writings. The film captures O’Connor’s southern gothic tone moving back and forth between scenes from O’Connor’s actual life and O’Connor inserted within her own stories.
Dark and sometimes uncomfortable; the film presents darkness not for darkness’ sake but as an invitation to viewers to the same grace to which O’Connor wanted her readers to respond.
With its grotesque characters, the southern gothic genre was essential to O’Connor’s writing because she recognized we are all grotesque, bent and warped by sin. We are not what we should be. Contrary to the way we often view ourselves, we are not normal despite outward appearances. Her writing focuses on what should be ordinary people, who are in fact grotesque, and their physical distortions reveal the deeper internal warping of the person.
“I use the grotesque the way I do because people are deaf and dumb and need help to see and hear,” O’Connor wrote.
The movie achieves this by inserting O’Connor into her own stories. Her struggle with sin, particularly her fear of pride, are depicted in her characters. Viewers are made to feel a part of her stories. Their secret sin is brought before them, and the viewer feels exposed. It is a reminder to all of us that, without grace, we too are the characters in O’Connor’s stories.
“The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural,” O’Connor wrote.
We must be reminded of our abnormalities, or else we run the risk of seeing ourselves as normal while focusing on the grotesqueness in our neighbors. We are disordered by sin trying to save ourselves in all the wrong ways and, far too often, rejecting the grace God is offering to us in the moment.
“All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal,” O’Connor wrote.
The author is also shown grappling with the loss of dreams and aspirations. Afflicted with lupus, O’Connor left behind ambitions to live in New York, instead returning to her home in Georgia to be cared for by her mother. Georgia would be the place where she would do most of her writing, and the South would serve as the backdrop of her stories.
O’Connor’s life testified to the reality that God does bring good out of our suffering. She prayed to be a writer and to write a story for Him, and by His grace, she did.
The film powerfully shows O’Connor coming to terms with moving home and with her inevitable death. The depiction of a priest’s visit is raw and emotive. Struggles with death, faith, and desire to be a great writer characterize the author. O’Connor recognized that she loved God imperfectly, as we all do. The film intersperses lines from her posthumously published prayer journal, often in the dialogue.
“I do not know you God because I am in the way,” the film quotes. “Please help me push myself aside.”
The film demonstrates O’Connor’s recognition that the Christian cannot fully have a home in this world. Shown to be uncomfortable in the secular world of New York, she finds herself unable to fit in at writer’s parties. It is at such a party that she defends the Eucharist before secular peers and even other Christians, who would distance themselves from the sacrament.
“If it is a symbol, to hell with it,” O’Connor utters in a famous retort before a stunned room. Back in the South, she still isn’t a perfect fit, bothered by many who hold to a form of Christianity focused on morality without understanding the exacting nature of grace. This more comfortable form of Christianity was, in reality, just another gentler secularism, but it was a secularism that better understood what it had lost, as she acknowledged when she described the South as “Christ haunted” as opposed to “Christ centered.” The difference to her was grace, understanding its cost and what it requires.
Grace, as O’Connor reminds us, required a bloodied and crucified savior. It is not, as she put it, an “electric blanket.” It requires of us a genuine response, but it is always available to those who would receive it, always offered. It can combat the darkness of this world and, even more importantly, the darkness within each of us if we are only willing to be “dead to sin.”
The film reminds us of this as it concludes with the hymn To Canaan’s Land, “To Canaan’s land I’m on my way, Where the soul never dies; My darkest night will turn to day, Where the soul never dies.”
Comment by Thomas on July 18, 2024 at 12:30 pm
A very good article about a great Christian writer. Despite her depictions of violence and evil, they are never meaningless. Her stories, even often grotesque, are as much anti-violence and anti-evil as they gan get.
Comment by Gregor on July 19, 2024 at 11:53 am
Thanks for the review. I’m looking forward to seeing this. I love O’Connor’s stories – I think John Huston made a film of Wise Blood decades ago. Translating her unique vision to the screen has to be a real challenge.
Comment by David Gingrich on July 20, 2024 at 7:32 am
Wow. I am familiar with O’Connor’s name but not her work. I will try to get familiar. Thank you!