Something Wild: Jonathan Demme’s subversive, endearing take on the screwball comedy

Directly after making Stop Making Sense (1984), director Jonathan Demme tapped David Byrne to contribute the opening song of his next feature, Something Wild. Bridging the gap between the old and the new, Byrne’s “Loco De Amor (Crazy For Love)” brings us into the energetic, undoubtedly Americana, and romantic world of Something Wild, which just so happens to be New York City. 

Something Wild falls in the same category of films such as Peter Bogdanovich’s What’s Up Doc? and Howard Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby, both stories  of a chance encounter between one tame boy and one wild girl, who then embark on a lengthy, screwball-bound first date that pushes the man beyond his previously perceived limits. However, Demme levels up this typical story with atypical moments of tenderness and a deeper exploration of who these two strangers become to one another, turning their chance meeting into a fated transformation. 

Jeff Daniels plays our unsuspecting yuppie, a straight-laced investment banker named Charlie who (seemingly) uncharacteristically decides to dine and dash one clear blue day in Manhattan. He’s quickly confronted by a woman by the name of Lulu, played by Melanie Griffith in an eye-catching, dark bobbed wig. She’s flirty and mysterious, pulling Charlie like any siren calling for a naive, lovesick sailor. From there, she takes Charlie on a ride, or moreso abducts him and carts him off to her hometown in Pennsylvania, with plenty of rowdy pit stops along the way.

As wild and put-on as Lulu’s act is, Charlie has his own façade on as well, and both characters slowly chip away at each other's pretenses over their road trip together. It's in this vulnerability that love blooms. Lulu’s schtick mainly projects fearlessness, unwieldy sex-appeal, and lack of worry over today, tomorrow, or anyone she meets in between. This edgy persona dramatically falls away when arriving in her hometown, where she loses the wig and reintroduces herself as the demure Audrey, forcing Charlie to play the part of her successful fianceé for her mother and high school reunion attendees. 

Meanwhile, Charlie’s just a married man living in the suburbs with his wife and two kids—except he’s not. What we learn far before Audrey is that Charlie’s divorced, lonely, and unfulfilled in his stuffy work. He obviously uses “Lulu” as a means to inject excitement into his life and distract him from his droning existence. Audrey and Charlie both try to use each other for their own emotional and social needs, but in the only predictable part of this movie, fall for each other. Something Wild is incredible in the ways it takes archetypal characters and imbues them with such depth and likeability, subverting who they are and the expectations attached to their image with every unforeseen move. 

Something Wild runs extremely loose, with erraticism underlying every character’s move. Even Demme himself noted upon reading E. Max Frye’s script for the first time: “I had no idea where the story was going . . . but I wanted to go along with it. And every time I thought I had figured it out, it veered off in another direction.” Despite this setup from the get-go, the shift to a twisted noir in the third act of the film feels all the more thrilling and daring for Demme as a filmmaker. 

While Lulu/Audrey and Charlie are unhinged in their own more benevolent ways, we are introduced to chaotic evil incarnate in the form of a young, fresh-on-the-scene Ray Liotta, who plays Audrey’s recently released from prison husband, Ray Sinclair. He’s absolutely devious—the perfect jumping off point for Liotta—who channels charm and uncaged violence to create an  atomic bomb for Audrey and Charlie. He strikes justifiable fear into the lovebirds that tests their unlikely bond, and attempts to push them back into their perceived corners of the world.

The tone quickly becomes sinister and darker than ever expected, but not enough to jar the audience and yank them out of the story. If anything, this shift ups the stakes for Charlie and Audrey, taking their romance from the realm of fantasy and putting it to the test when grim reality sets in. They’re no longer projections of their own needs and desires, but real people in a really shitty situation. It’s emotionally effective, and once again adds surprising depth to a story that could easily stick to the giddy and lighthearted. All of this makes Demme’s Something Wild an unconventional offering that feels like it should be more common, with characterization at the forefront, and genre tropes playing second fiddle.