Directed by Craig Johnson
Picturehouse, Liverpool
12th June 2017

Reviewed by Colin Serjent

Based on the graphic novel by Daniel Clowes, Wilson is a Luddite in regard to the Internet and all its gadgets, and rages against many other things in contemporary society.

He also detests people, with his only friend, or so it seems, a wire fox terrier named Pepper.

He regularly rankles people, even to the extent of sitting next to a stranger in a railway carriage, while all the other seats remained empty.

In fact, he seems to enjoy getting up peoples noses and making them squirm in anguish.

After suffering the pain of his dad’s death, he attempts to link up with his former wife Pippi (Laura Dern), a former prostitute and junkie. Dern turns in a notable acting performance.

He then finds out he has a teenage daughter, Claire (Isabella Amara), after his split from Pippi, who was adopted by a middle-class couple.

Despite his antagonism about most other things, her gross obese condition does not even muster a comment from Wilson, which I found perplexing. Maybe it’s because so many people in the USA are in similar shape to Claire.

He ends up in jail, where he only gets one visitor in the 26 months he is there, and that is Pippi, delivering him some bad news.

The closing scene is saccharine, to say the least, which was totally at odds with what had gone before in the film.