MUBI

I know where Cam Archer was trying to take me, but the film didn’t get me there. Wild Tigers is a coming-of-age story about Logan, a 13-year-old dealing with the growing awareness of his own sexual orientation. One gets the sense that he is spared greater harassment only because he tends not to be noticed at all. His best friend is a science dork, and it’s clear that the friendship is on the wane. The dork is obsessed with outer space and wants to be cool, while Logan’s main obsession is mountain lions that have been roaming the area and his desire for another outcast, Rodeo. Rodeo is a different sort of outlaw than his admirer – very masculine, self-confident, and ready to move on to high school, which he thinks will be better because it’ll be bigger and have more kids. By contrast, Logan is androgynous, unsure of himself, and too disconnected from the world-at-large to believe that the high school experience will be an improvement over junior high. Whilst Rodeo is blasé about sex he’s had with girls, Logan can’t stop thinking about the sex he’s never had and spends most of his time alone, masturbating and daydreaming. Aside from the school counselor, the few other adults in the film are oblivious to what Logan and others like him go through. His single-mother is harried, and the principal and teachers are enthusiastically out-of-touch to a degree that makes one question whether or not they are genuinely well meaning. Despite the potential authenticity of the basic story, Wild Tigers is experimental in nature, and that’s where it fails. There are lots of “dreamy” sorts of scenes meant to capture Logan’s inner state, but I think they distance the viewer from him. Most of the time, I felt it difficult to empathize with the boy, and I frequently found myself thinking “I hate this movie.” I give it two stars because I think it was a valiant attempt.