Extreme tonal shift in this film

https://lebeauleblog.com/2013/01/05/what-the-hell-happened-to-melanie-griffith/

In 1986, Griffith starred opposite Jeff Daniels in Jonathan Demme’s quirky comedy, Something Wild.

Griffith played a variation on the manic pixie dream girl who turns Daniels’ life upside down. Daniels played an uptight banker who Griffith catches in the midst of a dine-and-dash. Griffith’s Lulu is intrigued by this relatively mild rebellion and takes Daniels’ Charlie on a series of adventures.

The great thing about Something Wild is that it takes an unexpected dark turn in the film’s final act. Usually in these movies, the hero learns to loosen up through the irresponsible and self-destructive behavior of a beautiful stranger. That’s true here too, but the couple’s actions have real life repercussions when Lulu’s violent ex boy friend Ray, played by a never-scarier Ray Liotta, arrives on the scene.

Something Wild is sexy, romantic, occasionally dark, funny and appropriately enough wild. Critics responded to its quirky charms even if mainstream audiences didn’t know what to make of it. The movie opened in seventh place at the box office behind Jumpin’ Jack Flash which had been in theaters for five weeks.

Griffith, Daniels and Liotta were all nominated for Golden Globes for their performances. Griffith lost out to Sissy Spacek who won for Crimes of the Heart. Although Something Wild was not a hit at the box office, it has developed a cult following on video.

This movie lost me after Ray showed up. Why does every single Hollywood movie always have to involve a 'bad guy' giving chase to the main character(s)? It's so formulaic and stale.

That was what was great about the 80s! No roundtable story discussions with executives trying to make every movie the exact same as every other movie!

I completely agree. First half is a wacky comedy then it becomes a gritty thriller as soon as Ray Liotta shows up. But strangely it still works.

Jonathan Demme is a genius director so it’s unclear whether he was a little rusty in terms of identifying a tone back in ‘86, or if he was ahead of his time and deliberately wanted to play with swapping genres.

I’m inclined toward the latter maybe because it kinda works. The characters are constant throughout and it plays into Charlie’s journey of doing ‘something wild’, it’s just a little dark for that to be murder, and that shot of Liotta wiping blood over his face while looking in the mirror just before he dies is straight out of a horror movie.

I file this under ‘endearing curiosity’.