iTunes Exclusive Episode Wilson
Director Craig Johnson's Wilson, an adaptation of Daniel Clowes' graphic novel, stars Woody Harrelson as a man attempting to reunite with his estranged girlfriend (Laura Dern) after discovering they have a daughter. The film is a slow-moving independent drama with dark humor that explores relationships and personal redemption through strong performances.
About this episode
Key takeaways
- Wilson is a slow-paced independent film that uses its deliberate pace to build emotional impact rather than drag
- Woody Harrelson delivers a strong performance as an unreliable character with a good side, while Laura Dern excels as a recovering addict
- The film's visual style complements its mood without relying on CGI, creating an intimate independent feel similar to Ghost World
- Dark humor and emotional scenes about relationships balance throughout, making it a film that will make you laugh and feel sad
Q&A
Who plays Wilson's estranged girlfriend?
Laura Dern plays Wilson's former girlfriend, the mother of their daughter
What is the film based on?
Wilson is an adaptation of a graphic novel by Daniel Clowes, who also wrote Ghost World and Art School Confidential
What happens when Wilson reunites with his ex?
He discovers they have a daughter who was adopted out, and they decide to help each other in various ways
Who else appears in the cast?
The cast includes Isabella Amara as the daughter Clare, Laura Lynn Rice Club from 24, Margo Martindale in a five-to-ten minute role, and Cheryl Hines
Read Transcript
with them. So Green is Empire member and or members. If you're hearing the sound of my voice currently, it means the following conditions have been met at least once in your lifetime you have listened to the clubhouse podcast.
Your one stop shop for all things pop culture live every Sunday, night, seventies, or four Pacific, but it also means you subscribe on your favorite podcast app because it is time for another app exchange exclusive number 272 of these things. Welcome. My name is Rob on the executive producer of the clubhouse podcast and uh I'm just kind of chill with man.
It's kind of how I'm doing. But I'm not alone for this particular episode joining me across the desk as he does from time to time. He's the official fact checker of this show and a man who's a big dentist and men as fan because he likes to say Mr.
Wilson. You may know this fun don't go. There's a moment even down for them.
I'm going to call him down for it. Well, I'm sorry. Mr.
Wilson. There you go, see him. It's like I telegraphed it.
Whatever we do one of these things it is to review something. This is no exception. Director Craig Johnson who did a film a couple years ago that I'm a huge fan of called the Skeleton twins is back with his adaptation of a graphic novel which a lot of people don't understand from Daniel Claus.
That's actually a graphic novel. It is called Wilson for which I have this whole thing. Yes, sir.
We got to take Austin nearby at Slyfox. See me. See me.
See me. See me. See me.
See me. So this one's going to be a lot more don intensive because there were two different screenings on the same night. I went to one don went to the other because we want to make sure that our vendors are taken care of because they take care of us so well.
We want to support them just as much as they support us. So here's what you need to know. Woody Harrelson plays the title character, Wilson.
Kind of a screw up. Yeah. And but he decides he wants to turn his life around.
I would say that. Does he not? No.
Some things happen where you know unexpected events happen. Okay. I kind of changed his perspective a little bit.
I don't think it was an intention. But he wants to reunite with the lady that he was with his estranged wife. Yes.
Played by the great Judy Greer. If I'm not mistaken. No, no.
Actually, it's played by Lord Dern. Oh, Lord Dern. Okay.
Yeah. I don't know. Yeah.
We bought the Lord Dern. Okay. So again, you saw this.
I didn't. Yes. And in the course of this, he finds out that there's a daughter.
And this is all in the trailer. So I'm not saying anything. And so they kind of chose aside that they're going to help each other out in a certain way.
Shape or form and then things go from there. Also in this, the great Mary Lynn Rice Club from 24. Close.
Yep. Let's see if there's any other names that I were recognizing as not off hand. So Dern, I'm going to let you take.
So who does Judy Greer actually play? She plays Shelley. What is her relation?
Well, it's kind of like, uh, you could say, I'll just say quote a friend. Okay. Fair enough though.
What happens is he's kind of, where Harrison plays that kind of guy. He's just no responsibility. You can't depend on him for much.
That kind of thing. Then he's able to find this old girl from 20 years ago. Played by Dern.
Who's now? This is wife. Yeah.
At the time. Well, there was that Mary there. They weren't married.
They were not married. They were boyfriend girlfriend. Girlfriend.
Okay. What I'm reading on IMDV says reunited with his strange wife. Well, there's the beta ball in that.
Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough.
So he realizes through like Facebook, he kept met meet up with people and stuff. So he finds out where he's at meets up with her. And she's had her issues, her demons.
You know, would you talk about in your written review, currently located at www.theclubhouse.com? Which is our website? Fair enough.
Okay. So upon that, he thought when she got pregnant and that's why they broke up that she terminate the pregnancy. He thought.
But then he finds out that actually they she did not end the daughter was adopted out. Okay. So I think we've kind of gone as far as really want to go.
Yeah. Let's talk first about the the visual style here because from the trailer that I saw, it's got a very independent film field to it. But not really in a bad way.
It's got kind of it reminded me a lot of the field of like Ghost World also based on a graphic novel. Yeah. So did you feel like that that the mood fit correctly?
Yeah. Was it okay? Which I put in my written review at www.clubhouse.com?
Maintains is our website. So look felt fine, complimented the mood. There's some sunny scenes, but mostly it was one of those kind of scenery things that nothing no CGI wasn't needed or anything like that.
Because it's not that kind of yeah. Exactly. But it felt fine.
You had complimented the film, the look of the film. How was the how was it performed? Performance is here.
Harrelson did good. It's what he said. What do Harrelson brother?
Yeah. He could do those serious roles, but he could kind of do those, you know, from chairs to zombie land, we could play the pure redneck to the E-poise guy who's likable, but you just don't want to depend on him and he does no inspiration in life at this time really. Okay.
Okay. But he still has a good side to him that people kind of like about him. So in that part aspect did good, Durn played the recovering addict very, very well.
Well, Durn is one of those actresses that she just kind of shows up. Like, she is just not run for Wattles on. Oh, here's a Lord Durn film.
Did not see that coming. But I would do have to say, but she's always great. Yeah.
The girl who plays the daughter in the film. Oh, I'm bear with me. What's like, Amara, Isabel Amara plays Clare the daughter.
Okay. Because they meet up with her. And she's one of those who's like, yeah, whatever, because she's kind of been bullied.
There's a great stand-up comic named Lauren and Weedman. I'm a big fan of it in this as well. Yes.
But she plays that role kind of well of kind of like, Oh, you're my parents are an estimate. Hey, what's going on. So she kind of plays that girl who's kind of interested and stuff like that.
Who kind of changes what meeting the parents, you know, but doesn't have that real emotional. So I thought she did get to play that part. Because it's a tough part to play.
Because you think about it. Even a adoptive off adopted out. You never seen your parents.
Mm-hmm. Oh, Cheryl Heinz also in this year. Yeah.
From Kirby and Dozingazon. Okay. So she's 17 years old.
So I was saying, Oh, here's my real parents. You know, that would be emotional to a lot of people when you think about it. If that was happening to you real life.
But she's kind of like, it. Mm-hmm. Now Isabel Amara also will be the upcoming Spider-Man homecoming.
Yes. This summer. She did an episode of Nashville as well.
She was also in the, uh, Melissa McCarthy filmed the boss. I think you're burying the lead here a little bit, sir. What do you mean?
I just saw a name on my rundown here that maybe you're kind of underselling a little bit here. One of your favorite actresses has a role in this. Margo Martin's.
She's probably in there. What you see on the trailer is Mr. Her role.
She's only in there five ten minutes. All right. I, you know, I love the Margo Martin.
I'm putting her on my written review. WWW, you know, been at the club of podcast.com. Still our website.
Okay. Uh, as one of the people. All right.
I want to make sure because I know she's one of your favorites. I didn't want you to sell that short. She did good.
But unfortunately, she's only in five ten minutes. Okay. But she does her role.
Well, what she does. But you know, I could watch her read the phone book, because she's so amazing. Yeah.
Now five ten minutes. She was Martin. So what do you expect?
Of course. The plot. It's, it's now and have long.
Okay. It's a slow moving kind of film. But that does, that's not a bad thing.
Okay. That's not a bad thing. This is one of those kind of independent films.
It's going to make you laugh in a few scenes. There's kind of a little bit of a dull humor. So I got to warn you on that.
But nothing real real. I mean, you can definitely get that from the trailer. Yes, sure.
Yes. So yeah, you get that with it. But, you know, there were some scenes that you're just kind of like, oh, it will hit you emotionally, but in a good way when you're talking relationships and stuff like that.
And I think they did it right. You know, this is not going to be that big budgety. You know, it's an independent.
It feels like an independent. But it has some people said, let's just make this film. If you're, it is right at all.
Yeah. If you, if you like to kind of genre of just, let's go to something that's not going to be a big box off. It weren't, they just want to do a good film.
They can joy and kind of leave the brain at the door and just have fun. All right. And have a little few laughs.
Make you feel happy. Make you feel sad. Yeah.
It's a kind of film. The plot set to intensive. If you want to get plaque don't go to this because you'll feel it drags.
I didn't feel it drag because it was slow moving, but it just very interesting as I'm doing a little bit more research here. Daniel Clows who wrote the graphic novel also did art school confidential. And I mentioned it looked a lot like Ghost World.
It's because he also wrote Ghost World. Yes. So that would make more sense to me now.
Okay, fair enough. So it's just one of those good films. The acting is good.
No one has a big role in separation, but he plays it right. He carries it well. Yeah, he does.
Anything else you want to talk about before we get to the final analysis? I think we're good. All right.
The way we do the final analysis on this show. We're not going to give you thumbs up thumbs down. We're not going to give you four master wheels.
We're going to get a little deeper because that's what our audience whom we affectionately refer to as the empire requires from us. I'm going to ask down up to two questions. Question number one is what do you see this film again?
What do you see? What do you hear? What do you never mind?
If he said, if if don't says no, then we're done here. But if he says yes, then I'm going to ask the follow-up question and the follow-up question is how far are you willing to go to see it again? Our spectrum from top to bottom full price of the theater, twilight, matinee, early morning, second one of the dollar theater, red box, Netflix, cable.
Don, you want to see this again? Yeah, see it again. How far you want to go to see it?
I would recommend it as red box. Go out. It's worth going out and getting.
Actually leaving the house to go get. Yeah. Okay.
Fair enough. And take it home and just an enjoyable, fun, relaxing film. It is Craig Johnson's Wilson starring Woody Harrelson.
Again, we got to think of Austin there, but it's liefox. See me. See me.
See me. See me. See me.
We're such fans of those guys. There's such and they're so nice to us. And they let us get to see movies.
So we can talk to you about them. Show you the plugs. Let's do it.
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Clubhouse is closed and even though I didn't see this, there's always room for Brittany Palmer. You can put her in just about anything. She's like a universal actress.
You can make that happen.