Something Wild

John Waters described Kitten with a Whip as “a failed art film,” and I think that description can carry over to Something Wild, the obscure tale of a cinematic sexpot emoting after sexual trauma and trading one abusive relationship for another. There’s something wonderful underneath the hysteria here, and the better film emerges routinely from the questionable diversions and near madness of its choices. I mean, Something Wild opens with the proverbial “stranger in the bushes” rape scenario and continues on to the sight of Jean Stapleton getting drunk with a questionably legal boy toy before shoving Carroll Baker into an imprisonment with Ralph Meeker that softens into…love, I guess. There’s also her controlling mother (Mildred Dunnock, dialing it up way too much) that constantly cries about the dirt and ugliness of the city, symbolism about water that goes nowhere slowly, a suicide attempt that’s one of the best scenes in the film that quickly turns in on itself when you realize it’s a prelude to Meeker’s kidnapping and holding Baker captive until she agrees to marry him. Something Wild takes a serious, gripping set-up then gives one camp outburst after another before the whole thing just winds up being misshapen and weird. If anything qualifies as a failed art film, and if anything underlines how uneven an actress Baker was, it’s Something Wild, a rape melodrama-noir film that turns into a Stockholm Syndrome “love” story in the end.