'Wild Nights With Emily' A Review

Wild Nights With Emily is biographical comedy about the life but more so the love of poet Emily Dickinson and her sister-in-law Susan Dickinson. The film uses a lecture by Mable Todd(Amy Seimetz), editor of Emily's work posthumously, as a framing device to cut back to Emily's life as a teen and how her and Susan fell in love with the bulk of the story showing Emily(Molly Shannon) and Susan(Susan Ziegler) as adults.

This film in general is an interesting companion piece to the substantially more reserved and straightforward A Quiet Passion, but it is even more intriguing to put Shannon's driven yet playful, opinionated yet approachable version of Emily up against Cynthia Nixon's more tragic and austere portrayal. They functions as sides of the same coin, as do the two films in conjunction, framing the life of the famous poet in different ways: one a yearning isolated woman-out-of-time and the other a mostly happy independent lesbian woman semi-closeted by the time in which she lived. Shannon gives an incredible amount of heart, wit, and grace to the role conveying the writing of and obsession with poetry very effectively given how difficult and vague that can be, giving one of the best performances of the year and the latest in her late career renaissance. Ziegler also gives a steady and grounding sense of reality to this woman and to the relationship which she's in. Seimetz as the other sizable role is fun, funny and manipulative, and justly, isn't given as much dimension as the couple at the center of the narrative.

The real triumph of the film though is it's multifaceted and melodic tone- moments of hilarious absurdity and abstract artistry are perfectly balanced with an overall grounded reality that is engaging and believable and never steers into the typical period piece trap of distant formality. Clearly on a small budget the cinematography is mostly serviceable but there are a couple moments of awkward framing and editing but overall the film has such vitality that is easily are overlooked. There are also a number of clearly fake props but this is mostly played for symbolic and comedic effect, at times it is unclear what is intentional, and this far from being distracting plays into the delightful chameleonic personality of the film.

Many of the Dickinson's poems are shown as text on screen, recited between characters, or in a few sequences conceptually performed. It's an inspiring celebration of poetry and one of it's greatest practitioners as well as an elegant portrait of a 19th century feminist icon.

Don't Miss It.