Howard Wakefield (Bryan Cranston) is a hard-nosed city lawyer whose lives revolves around his work in the city.  He is direct, rude, short-tempered and has a tense relationship based on sexual jealousy with his wife (Jennifer Garner).  One night there is an electricity outage on his way home from work causing him to be very late and he finds himself waiting in his garage attic for his wife and twin daughters to go to bed so that he can get into the house without confrontation.  He falls asleep and in the morning finds himself watching the family from his vantage point and again waiting until his wife goes to work so he can shave and change and resume normal life.  In the meantime she calls his work and then the police to report him missing.  It is at this point that Howard decides to opt out of his life and for the next many months he lives secretly in the garage attic, becoming a street person by night scavenging from bins and eventually befriending the young people who live next door and have learning disabilities.  Through all of this he learns to live, appreciate nature and he falls back in love with his wife and family.

Throughout, until its ‘will he, won’t he?’ ending, Wakefield is intensely gripping and thought-provoking.  Bryan Cranston inhabits the detestable character of Howard and takes us on a voyage of discovery with him until ultimately we feel we like and understand him and await with interest his decisions about his future.  What’s more Howard begins to like and understand himself.

Directed and written by Robin Swicord, based on a short story by EL Doctorow, this is a Film Festival must-see.

See it:

Friday 30th June 1805 Cineworld

Saturday 1st July 1520 Cineworld

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Mary is a longstanding writer with publications in The Scotsman and a number of independent travel logs and blogs. She has written professionally as part of her 40 year career in education and for pleasure.