Wild Canaries centers on bumbling twenty-something Brooklynite, Barri, as she
becomes convinced that foul play was involved in the death of her
elderly neighbor.
Meanwhile, her thirty-something, jaded and grumpy husband-to-be, Noah, does
everything in his power to reign in what he sees as foolish speculation and
meddlesome tendencies on the part of his fiance. Enter the couple’s
roommate Jean
(an outstanding turn by Arrested Development’s Alia Shawkat), whose maybe-not-
so-platonic feelings towards Barri increase tensions in the household
and may help
to inform her belief that Barri is on to something. As the plot
thickens, so too does
the pre-marital discord.
An outstanding ensemble cast fleshes out the
rest of the film
including Kevin Corrigan (Martin Scorsese’s The Departed) as the decedent’s
vaguely creepy son and Jason Ritter as the couple’s boozing artist
landlord who has
secrets of his own. Wild Canaries’ interplay between genres and themes forms an
elegant and uproarious whole that showcases the filmmakers’ many talents, upping
the ante on their previous works. A highly entertaining and carefully
crafted film
that gleefully and smartly references the likes of Woody Allen’s
Manhattan Murder
Mystery and Peter Bogdanovich’s What’s Up Doc? and their genre-classic
forebearers,
while maintaining a thoroughly modern sense of life in 21st century
New York. As if
the pressures of big city living and an impending marriage weren’t enough, there
just might be a killer loose in the building! –Maryland Film Fest
Starring Sophia
Takal, Alia Shawkat, Lawrence Michael Levine and Kevin Corrigan