Kiernan Shipka heads a stellar cast in the irreverent coming of age comedy “Wildflower.” Shipka delivers a delicious performance as droll and prickly teenager Bea Johnson for whom “complicated” doesn’t even begin to describe her life.
Bea is the self-appointed caretaker of her intellectually challenged but happy-go-lucky parents Sharon (Samantha Hyde) and Derek (Dash Miho), a Las Vegas-living, slots-playing, Jesus-loving couple who don’t sweat the small, or the big, stuff. Bea does that for them just fine, a role she assumed as a kid (Ryan Kiera Armstrong is terrific as the younger Bea).
Director Matt Smukler strikes a tone between genuine poignance and comic absurdity. Child-like Sharon and Derek, who ran off to marry in Vegas and promptly had a child, are treated with spiky humor but are never the butt of jokes. We also get them through Bea’s point of view as the often neglected, embarrassed, put upon daughter. As a child, she is taken in by her overprotective aunt Joy (Alexandra Daddario) and her family. But Joy's hyper control over her twin sons, from cutting up their food to forbidding use of the pool, makes Bea miss the freedom of her own unsupervised family life.
“Wildflower” makes the potentially disastrous choice to open the film with an accident that puts Bea in a coma, narrating her birth-to-present story in flashbacks from a hospital bed. Some of this can’t possibly make sense but it works, thanks to clever writing and the top-notch cast.
The film’s ease and playfulness with what could have been cringe-y material is perhaps because “Wildflower “ is based on true events in director Smukler’s own family experience. Comparisons with “CODA” are inevitable, given that both films center on a dutiful daughter dealing with parents who have disabilities and who are dysfunctional. But the subject is fresh enough for many versions and the “Wildflower” cast, starting with Shipka, distinguishes itself from top to bottom.
Bea’s feuding maternal and paternal grandmothers, played respectively by Jean Smart and Jacki Weaver, are alone worth the price of admission. Charlie Plummer as Bea’s sensitive boyfriend and Kannon Omachi as her loyal BFF manage to transcend cliched roles. But it’s Shipka’s fierce turn as Bea, who may be using her family obligations as an excuse not to fly, that gives “Wildflower” its wings.
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