Wildcat

Ethan Hawke's Wildcat has all the makings of an indie gem.

A biopic of Flannery O'Connor (Maya Hawke) sprinkled with adaptations of the author's legendary short stories presents an imaginative twist on the often cliché fact-based route. And yet these would-be standout sequences — in which snippets of “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” “Good Country People,” and other works of fiction are dramatized for the screen — wind up being the film’s least engaging elements.

The director and his first-time co-writer Shelby Gaines exhaust themselves spotlighting the autobiographical elements of O’Connor’s stories, particularly the influence of her overbearing mother Regina (Laura Linney), resulting in Increasingly hokey parts for Maya Hawke and Linney within the adaptation segments.

Rafael Casal, Cooper Hoffman, and Steve Zahn also appear as the conniving men that populate the author’s work, and while their faces are welcome sights, each chapter has a flimsy “James Franco adapts Faulkner” vibe to it.

Instead, Wildcat’s historical half, centering on O’Connor coming to terms with the debilitating onset of lupus while visiting her mother in Milledgeville, Georgia, features far more artistry and visual risk-taking.

Though the literary tangents disrupt what little flow the film achieves, Maya Hawke and Linney are at their best in these linear stretches, butting heads and pushing each other to their dramatic limits. And the quietly charged scenes between O’Connor and her potential love interest, the poet Robert 'Cal' Lowell (Philip Ettinger, First Reformed), offer consistent delights.

Even so, there’s little here to suggest that O’Connor’s life provided enough fodder for a feature-length film — a notion fortified by the bland 2020 documentary Flannery, which struggled to fill 90-plus minutes with archival footage, talking heads, and passages of her writing.

Ethan Hawke’s film also reinforces why there hasn't been a definitive (or even respectable) adaptation of her short stories. Like fellow Southerner Cormac McCarthy, O’Connor’s creations exist more successfully on the page and require someone of the Coen Brothers’ caliber to reach their big-screen potential.

Grade: C. Not rated, but with adult language and content. Now playing at Grail Moviehouse.

(Photo: Oscilloscope Laboratories)