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American filmmaker Matt Smukler presented a humorous coming-of-age drama about a teenage girl who is forced to care for her mentally undercapacitated parents at the festival in Toronto. “Wildlfower” is also the name of his short film made a few years earlier in which he dealt with the same subject, supposedly motivated by real events and real people, and although he managed to gather a really respectable cast for the feature-length version, it was somehow mediocre. And it’s a real shame, because the beginning of “Wild Flower” was really promising and it seemed that it could be one of those unexpected indie treats, a cute and surprisingly witty humorous drama that, however, very quickly got used up and drowned in clichés, sweetness and excessive preaching.
The main protagonist is 17-year-old Bea (Kiernan Shipka) and she tells her life story in moments while lying in a coma. And we don’t know at first what happened to her, and close and extended relatives gathered around her hospital bed, worried about her, but somehow quarreling with each other. While high school student Bea lies in a coma, she introduces us to her parents, her father Derek (Dash Milok) and her mother Sharon (autistic actress Samantha Hyde). And while Sharon has been on the autistic spectrum since birth and is at the level of a child, Derek had an accident as a boy in which his brain was damaged and he is still at the level of a nine-year-old. To the horror of their parents, Derek and Sharon get married, run away from home and have a child who is not only not mentally retarded, but Bea (real name Bambi given to her by her mother because it is her favorite cartoon character) is intelligent, talented and capable girl.
In brief, we learn about her upbringing and how she had to start taking care of her parents very early, and now she is about to finish high school, she is offered various options for college, but she does not dare to leave her parents alone. The supporting cast is also of high quality, and Bea’s grandmothers are Jean Smart and Jacki Weaver, her grandfather is Brad Garrett, best known as Ray’s brother from the comedy series “Everybody Loves Raymond”. Bea’s aunt and Sharon’s sister is Alexandra Daddario, who is constantly excessively worried about her niece, and a little bit all these circumstances are reminiscent of a much more successful and better film, namely “CODA” by Sian Heder. There, the main protagonist was also almost trapped among her parents, who couldn’t do without her, and this was also a kind of excuse for her to try to get out of the comfort zone she had created and try to achieve something more.