‘Wilderness’ a pulpy drama about infidelity and revenge: review
17.09.2023 - 21:59
/ nypost.com
streaming, is based on a novel by B.E. Jones and follows British couple Liv (Jenna Coleman) and Will (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), who embark on a road trip through the American West including Las Vegas and the deserts and canyons of Arizona.The opening scene is a close-up of a black widow spider, just before it’s crushed by Liv and Will, driving a powder-blue convertible.
“If you’d have seen us that day, you’d have hated us,” Liv says in a voiceover. “This perfect happy couple.
Charming husband, loving wife, everyone fulfilling their roles…” which sets the tone for a story where nothing is as it seems, on the surface.This vacation is a trip that Liv has always wanted to go on, and Will is finally taking her as a way to make amends after she discovers that he cheated on her with a colleague. Liv, however, has a different goal in mind, and begins thinking of ways that their trip could become fatal for Will … while seeming to be an accident.Her vengeance plans become more complicated when they run into Will’s affair partner, Cara (Ashley Benson), and her clueless boyfriend, Garth (Eric Balfour), while they’re hiking in Yosemite National Park.The cast is good, especially Jackson-Cohen, who is in his element playing yet another man who oscillates between being charming, tormented and sleazy.
He’s played shades of similar characters in “The Haunting of Hill House” and “Surface,” and even told The Post, “I seem to be a go-to guy for toxic men.” Coleman simmers with quiet rage that occasionally bursts out, while Benson and Balfour make for solid supporting players. Coleman also supplies occasional voiceover, sardonically stating things like, “It turns out the whole forgiveness shtick, being the better person… well … kind of stuck in
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