Whether the two halves of Something Wild -- the offbeat romp and the horrifying wallow -- fit successfully in the same film is debatable... But, viewed on their individual merits, both halves are brilliantly crafted.

| Jan 22, 2025

Something Wild is based more on first principles than anything new, but it applies them with such vigour that the movie has a sense of limitless freedom. It tastes like free-range chicken, rather than battery-produced.

| Jan 22, 2025

Something Wild is rough-edged. It doesn’t have the grace of Demme’s Citizens Band and Melvin and Howard or the heightened simplicity of his Stop Making Sense. It has something else, though -- a freedom that takes off from the genre framework.

| Sep 13, 2023

It's not every day that someone goes Alfred Hitchcock one better, but in ''Something Wild,'' Jonathan Demme has done it.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 11, 2020

As an artefact from a period -- the mid-80s -- that produced almost nothing distinctive, this remains breezy fun.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 11, 2020

This is the Demme of "Melvin and Howard," soaring back where he belongs, and long overdue too.

| Jun 11, 2020

It begins with a meet-cute and ends with a murder, and sandwiched in between those emotional extremes are romance, regret and revenge.

| May 17, 2011

Conceptually and stylistically compelling under Jonathan Demme's sometimes striking direction, this offbeat thriller is about an unlikely couple on the run.

| Jul 6, 2010

Jonathan Demme's picaresque joyride across the American landscape is still arguably the best thing he's ever done.

| Dec 26, 2006

Demme observes the human eccentricity that underlies the corner-store banalities of Middle America with warmth and loving detail; while a magnificent rock soundtrack and faultless performances from Daniels, Griffith and Liotta ensure pleasures galore.

| Jun 24, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 30, 2004

The film's principal difficulty is E. Max Frye's original screenplay, which is better thought out in terms of its narrative than of the characters.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 20, 2003

Despite the quirky trappings, Something Wild is often as tame as its star couple, a pair who scream Ivory soap and plenty of Miracle Whip.

| Jan 1, 2000

A load of fun.

| Jan 1, 2000

Demme is a master of finding the bizarre in the ordinary... This is one of those rare movies where the plot seems surprised at what the characters do.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 1, 2000