The Wishing Tree (2020)
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The Wishing Tree (2020)
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A Lot or a Little?
The parents' guide to what's in this movie.
What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that The Wishing Tree (2020) is an indie drama about a woman's search for peace and understanding after a series of traumatic losses. Julia has recently lost her mother, an unborn child, and a husband, and tries to find an old tree that gave her peace when she was a child. The film deals with adult subjects like miscarriage, depression, alcoholism, and divorce. There's a fair amount of strong language "f--k," "f--ker," "f--king," "s--t," "a--hole," "damn," and "hell"), some violence (a man almost drowns in a river, a woman hits a man in the face, cutting his lip, a man shoves another man off him after the shoved kissed the shover without consent), and many scenes that show adults crying (a woman's mother dies in a hospital bed, a woman suffers a stillbirth after also going through many miscarriages, couples argue). There's some brief nudity (bare breasts and butts) during a sex scene between two men and a woman. Adults smoke cigars frequently. A man recovering from alcoholism carries around a bottle of whiskey "to know it's there." Another man drinks some whiskey and gets a little drunk. A woman drinks a mystical concoction of some sort.
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What's the Story?
In THE WISHING TREE (2020), a woman, Julia (Laura Adamo), has recently suffered a handful of losses. To find peace, she sets out into the forest to find a tree she remembers from her childhood. While in the forest, she runs into two strangers who remember her from high school (Sebastien Roberts and Altair Vincent), and together, they set off in search of Julia's "wishing tree."
Is It Any Good?
Earnestly shot and performed, this indie drama has plenty of gentle acoustic guitar that accompanies montages and scene transitions. But while The Wishing Tree (2020) strives for a quietly powerful introspective journey of a woman's idea of who she should be, a few issues keep this story from feeling important or relevant. Unfortunately, conventional writing ("Why would you infect me with your doubt?" "I want to feel something... else"), cringe-y decisions (the sex scene, the ending), and unexplained ambiguities (the woman at the end, the wishing tree) all make for an at times laborious watch.
The film launches right into Julia's pain and suffering well before there's any time to get to know her, who she is, and why the audience should care about her. Outside of knowing that she desperately wants to conceive a child, that she hasn't been able to yet, and that she and her partner have broken up over years of child conceiving failure, the viewer knows nothing about Julia. And it's never revealed why Julia (and her partner) never considered adoption or other alternative means to family making before they separated. Lastly, some might view this story as very "White people problems," as it's yet another indie drama about White people who invariably for some such reason end up trekking through a forest to "find themselves" after adulthood didn't turn out like how they imagined it would when they were younger.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about emotion in indie dramas. Does The Wishing Tree, in your opinion, represent Julia's sadness and anger believably? How so? How not so?
Does the romance that evolves feel genuine? Why or why not?
Why do you think Julia never contemplates adoption or other alternative forms of family making?
Movie Details
- In theaters: January 11, 2020
- On DVD or streaming: December 7, 2021
- Cast: Laura Adamo, Sebastien Roberts, Altair Vincent, Jake Michaels
- Director: Laura Adamo
- Studio: Random Media
- Genre: Drama
- Topics: Friendship
- Run time: 85 minutes
- MPAA rating: NR
- Last updated: November 2, 2022
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