Stream It Or Skip It?

The Wake (now streaming on VOD platforms like Amazon Prime Video) is a movie about midlife crises that might feel more familiar if it wasn’t told from the perspective of a young woman documenting them on film. Brian Brightly writes and directs this under-the-radar NYC indie drama that debuted on the festival circuit in 2024. It features performances from notable character actors Rob Yang (Succession) and Michael Chernus (Severance), part of a rock-solid ensemble cast working through a smartly scripted story about what people do after a beloved friend has died, leaving them to wander through the crater, contemplating, well, nearly everything. 

THE WAKE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: “A former babysitter films some aging men grieving the loss of their friend.” The student advisor pauses, then continues: “I mean, what could go wrong?” The filmmaker is Rachel (Julia Randall). The project is her NYU thesis. The dead man is her godfather, Jack (Chernus), part of the “cool guys club” who palled around with her dad. We watch a flashback in which Jack gives Rachel driving lessons — they were close, and then Jack got cancer, and now she sees an opportunity to learn something about these guys, and herself, and maybe the human condition. Not that impossible questions will be answered. She’s young, but that doesn’t mean she’s naive.

Among the other guys is Dan (Yang), who we see glumly driving golf balls into his backyard pool. In December. He has to clear out a little snow. When the club slams into the turf, he curses. The ground can be pretty hard this time of year. It’s lonely back there. Really lonely. Then there’s Spencer (Ross Partridge), who sits in bed staring blankly like he fell asleep discontent and woke up discontent and had dreams about how discontent he is. His wife quietly sleeps inches away but you sense the metaphysics of the situation, where inches might as well be the Grand Canyon. 

And finally there’s Ethan (Guster lead singer and film composer Ryan Miller), single, artfully disheveled with black nail polish, the relative free spirit. It seems he was closest to Jack; they get beers in a flashback and Jack drops the news of his diagnosis (“It’s serious. Stage four”) when they’re a little loose, and we witness tough, tough moments between them in the hospital. When Ethan says he wants to trade places with Jack, it isn’t just talk, and our hearts break. From the looks of things, Jack was the happiest of the bunch. Another flashback shows him bantering playfully in the kitchen with his wife, and there’s more love in this moment than any in the film.

Rachel watched these guys’ kids before she went to college, and now she’s watching them, sitting at their table at the wake, camera rolling with permission, her POV in black-and-white. She can be trusted. Ethan, Spencer and Dan decide a spontaneous trip to Atlantic City is, shall we say, in the cards, considering the sad hand they’ve been dealt. Well, “spontaneous” for middle-aged family guys is leaving tomorrow, after Spencer takes his mother to her doctor appointment. Rachel talks them into letting her tag along, a 20-something Millennial woman with 50ish Gen X guys, which is her way of fulfilling Jack’s advice to “attack (her) art aggressively.” She’s likely to get some compelling footage, right? But let it be known, this movie is not The Hangover, so temper your expectations accordingly.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: John Cassavetes’ Husbands is the headshot reference, with complicated shades of The Descendants as well.

Performance Worth Watching: Randall is the glue holding the narrative together, and her work and presence bring to mind stalwarts like Linda Cardellini and Rebecca Hall.

Memorable Dialogue: Decontextualized poignant exchange:

“This is a mistake, and it will cause great suffering.”

“Does it have to?”

Sex and Skin: Nothing notable.

Our Take: The camera alters the dynamic, doesn’t it? It forces the straddling insider-outsider perspective on a group of people who might need another point of view on their rites of passage — and allows the filmmaker to work through some of her own complicated feelings about loss. The Wake loses Rachel a little bit as it works through multiple flashbacks — necessary, although the tradeoff is a cluttered narrative — but brings her back in a profound way for the climax, when she foregoes third-person observation and makes herself part of her film, which surely will benefit from the intimacy of a first-person perspective.

It makes sense that Brightly would find the most emotional and intellectual traction in his middle-to-upper-middle-class male characters, being one himself; as another one of them, I found the film most poignant when Jack, Ethan, Spencer and Dan wrestle with the commonplace woes they’ve accumulated over the decades. These men are by no means unique and beautiful snowflakes — they’re average as hell, all the better for them to earnestly reflect the median malaise of their generation.

Brightly’s method is more cinematic than most talky dramas, with thoughtful shot composition and even better writing. The dialogue is potent but naturalistic, and never sounds overly composed or literary. His tone is sincere with splashes of dark, acidic comedy, which brings out the best of a strong cast with worn-in, comfy-old-couch chemistry. As these men work through conflicts, betrayals, propositions and bonding moments, the film never tries too hard, letting the characters dictate the action, not the other way around.

More ethereally, this movie hits that… thing inside middle-aged people who force thoughts of death from their minds multiple times a day, as they notice so painfully frequently how time has passed, is passing, and will pass. Am I the only one? I’m not the only one, am I? Ruminating on death as the horrible curse of sentience, then seeking a distraction, any distraction, from the thought? As Spencer, Dan and Ethan wrestle with their relationships, and lament the loss of a friend who was their absolute rock – especially for Ethan – Brightly cuts back to a moment in which Jack says, “I think mostly, I’m grateful I’m loved.” The sentiment is pithy and deceptively simple. But is there a meaning to life greater than that?

Our Call: The Wake is a smart, meaningfully reflective drama for those of us who’ve been going gray for the past decade or so. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.