Dreamin’ Wild

Long before DoorDash and Netflix, people struggled with delayed gratification. King Solomon wrote in Proverbs 13:12, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” Of course, he was talking about desires that run a little deeper than a late-night Cheesy Gordita Crunch and Baja Blast. Everyone has desired something so passionately, put in effort so diligently, and been left waiting so long as to only experience heartache.

Dreamin’ Wild (available on Hulu and VOD) tells the true story of Donnie Emerson (Casey Affleck) and his brother Joe (Walton Goggins), who as teenagers in 1979 wrote, recorded, and produced an album in a homemade studio. When their record failed to find an audience Joe resigned himself to working on the family farm, while Donnie opened a professional studio and played small-town gigs with his wife, Nancy (Zooey Deschanel).

Thirty years later a vinyl collector finds the Emersons’ record in an antique shop and shares it online, where it finally catches fire. Now, to the family’s bewilderment, a label wants to promote them and The New York Times is calling. A concert is scheduled, and Joe dusts off his drumsticks in anticipation. He was never great and now he’s worse. Donnie (ever the tortured artist), however, struggles differently.

Their story is told in flashbacks, as we see young Joe (Jack Dylan Grazer) and Donnie (Noah Jupe) realizing Donnie’s genius and leaning on their parents’ support. As Don Sr., Beau Bridges brings warmth to the film in an understated performance that reminds me of my grandfather. “I believe in you boys,” he tells them at the outset. He goes on to prove it by taking out enormous loans against the family farm. When the boys’ music career stalls, he loses almost everything.

Unlike most music biopics, there’s no meteoric rise to fame and descent into addiction or infidelity. Don Sr. never shows any anger or regret, though his material losses are great. If he’d wanted anything other than seeing Donnie use his gifts, it might have been a different story. Rather, though it’s never spelled out, the central conflict is Donnie working through three decades of guilt. His dream coming true is less significant than the laying down of his burdens so that he can embrace his family.

While this isn’t a “religious film,” the band prays before going on stage and Christian symbols decorate the walls of the family home. Bad language is mild, mostly coming from teens trying to sound cool and failing. Donnie gets a little hot-and-heavy with his first girlfriend in a way that his parents, and parents watching with their teens, could do without, but it’s nothing explicit.

Ultimately, Dreamin’ Wild is, like the album from which it gets its name, entirely unique, heartfelt, and a labor of love. (Roadside Attractions, Hulu)