Fatalistic daydreams uncannily invade the monotony of office life in Rachel Lambert’s darkly comic drama, starring a revelatory Daisy Ridley. Tempering surreal reveries with down-to-earth feelings, this idiosyncratic character portrait finds love—and the will to live—in the most unlikely of places.

Discontent with mid-century domesticity, a couple flee its demands, throwing their son prematurely into the mess of adult affairs. Wildlife may be his first film as director and screenwriter, yet Paul Dano comes close to the heights of Greek tragedy in this tale of the nuclear family in crisis.