2015 Directed by Reed Morano
In the hazy aftermath of an unimaginable loss, Sarah and Phil come unhinged, recklessly ignoring the repercussions. Phil starts to lose sight of his morals as Sarah puts herself in increasingly dangerous situations, falling deeper into her own fever dream.
Olivia Wilde Luke Wilson Elisabeth Moss Kevin Corrigan Juno Temple John Leguizamo Merritt Wever Giovanni Ribisi Ty Simpkins Kid Cudi Skipp Sudduth Nick Sandow Mark Feuerstein Yolonda Ross Anna Khaja Eden Duncan-Smith Ned Eisenberg Casey Walker Justine Torres KylieRae Condon Linda Powell Jon Asa Walker Ivana Shein Tim Barker Jakob von Eichel
Alex Garcia Jennifer Levine Jason Cloth Lauren Selig Santiago Garcia Galvan Kelly Morel Allan J. Stitt Andrew Pollack Clifford Rand G. Scott Paterson Paul Golini
Dentro del dolor, Луговая страна, Dans la brume du soir, 小镇迷踪, Lehull az éj, 메도우랜드, Sem Volta, Medovlenda, Лугова країна, ミッシング・サン
USA
Tribeca Film Festival
USAR
USA
It's a damn shame that the Academy ignores movies like this.
Reed Morano for Best Director/Cinematographer.
Olivia Wilde for Best Actress.
Is that so much to ask?
In the sub genre of “I lost my kid” films I’ve seen this done much more interestingly even if much less realistic... quite a snooze fest here 😴
Featuring arguably one of the most harrowing and emotionally exhausting portraits of depression and grief ever captured on film, Meadowland represents an absolutely incredible directorial debut from accomplished cinematographer Reed Morano, with a brutally honest script and achingly authentic performances throughout, especially from Olivia Wilde in a career-best role.
Coping to a loss of child, keeping the faith for the child's return even though you know the reality...
Here a couple is trying to breath in the world, not knowing what has happened to their child... Mom clinging to the hope of his return whereas the father trying to accept the reality and losing his morale.
Meadowland is movie about coping, grief and life you lead... Olivia Wilde gives one of her career best performances here after Drinking Buddies. She get through the characters skin in sync on how her character is leading her life. Her senses, how she is clinging to a hope, she doesn't want to believe the reality, she is trying to cling on to a child whose mother is a mess, father doesn't care.
The movie revolves mostly around the honest performances given by the actors.... The story itself is not that strong to get going. But still it is worth a go.
Grief, everyone deals with it in different ways. Some more extreme than others. Reed Morano's directorial debut stars Olivia Wilde in a role that she absolutely nails. It's the desperation in her eyes that really sell the part, and how she tries to hold on to something, just one thing that can make her feel alive again.
An artistically crafted portrait of depression that centers around a couple, 1 year after their son was unfortunately kidnapped at a gas station. It's a slow, but thoughtful drama that focuses on the two grieving parents in question, as they suffer from their own downward spirals. Luke Wilson is great as the father, a cop who's been trying to make friends at his support group but failing miserably. Olivia Wilde proves once again just how underrated she is as an actress, by giving us an immense performance as a teacher, slowly losing her mind in front of her students. Many key supporters such Elisabeth Moss, Kevin Corrigan and John Leguizamo are here as well, but sadly, most of them only…
I think it’s true that no body knows exactly how they would handle some situations until it happens to them. For a couple the situation is their worst nightmare as their child goes abruptly missing from a gas station. Meadowland becomes the exploration of two people grieving in different ways, one healthy and one maybe not so much.
A range of talented cast, I mean Kid Cudi is that you?, with Olivia Wilde flexing her acting muscles in something I’ve never seen her do before dramatically. She’s desperate and showing the length a character will go for peace. She successfully shows a woman whose lost all sense of her world and experiencing the world in a new, heartbreaking way. There’s this…
I like the performances and the way Reed Morano gets really close to the characters creating a strong sense of intimacy that keeps you engaged throughout the film. It's not an easy thing to achieve when the subject is an unthinkable tragedy. I'm not sure about the ending, it felt like an attempt to some kind of catharsis that didn't quite work for me. But overall I think it's a nice introduction to Morano who has a lot offer as a director.
224 of 365 Challenge
So I've always been a big fan of Olivia Wilde, so I was glad to check this one out as soon as it appeared on Netflix.
Meadowland follows Sarah (Wilde) and Phil (Luke Wilson) in the aftermath of a horrible tragedy. It examines how they each cope with grief, as they start to struggle in their own different ways.
Wilde gives maybe the best performance of her career as she slowly starts to spiral out of control while doing her best to cope.
It's quite moving at times and some scenes are really quite harrowing. It's a great character study but it never fully explores some aspects of the story and their grief, and it felt somewhat unresolved, with a rather abrupt ending.
Overall it's a moving look at grief, and despite its shortcoming, it's definitely still worth watching for Wilde's fantastic performance.
In some ways, Meadowland reminds me a lot of Rabbit Hole from five years ago, since both films wrestle with spouses who’ve become beasts of burden to losing a young child. Unnecessarily, Meadowland begins with their son's actual disappearance from a gas station only to immediately leap ahead one year after, picking up with married couple Sarah (Olivia Wilde) and Phil's (Luke Wilson) emotional fallout and opposing coping methods. It’s the exact same space to which John Cameron Mitchell's suburban couple belonged, and to be fair, his film eventually does include this scene more or less as well. But it comes at a pivotal point—not just as exposition—and with inspired intent amidst many other potent subtleties connecting that couple to…
The unfathomable pain of the loss of a child is something extremely difficult and complex to show on screen, but Reed Morano got the very best out of both the always excellent Olivia Wilde (and oh my goodness she should've been Oscar'd for this) and underrated Luke Wilson to help get that heartbreak across. A devastating story and if you can relate I'm sure it'll be among the very hardest of films to watch.
If only it had used the rest of the cast a bit better - there was some great talent in there who disappointingly only got a cumulative 15 minutes or so. As directorial debuts go, Morano's was as brutal as it was beautiful.
