Wild Palms (1993)

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Directors: Peter Hewitt, Keith Gordon, Kathryn Bigelow and Phil Joanou

Screenplay: Bruce Wagner

Based on the comic strip by Bruce Wagner

Cast: James Belushi as Harry Wyckoff, Dana Delany as Grace Wyckoff, Ben Savage as Coty Wyckoff, Robert Loggia as Senator Tony Kreutzer, Angie Dickinson as Josie Ito, David Warner as Eli Levitt, Kim Cattrall as Paige Katz, Ernie Hudson as Tommy Laszlo, Nick Mancuso as Tully Woiwode, Bebe Neuwirth as Tabba Schwartzkopf, Aaron Michael Metchik as Peter Katz, Brad Dourif as Chickie Levitt

Synopsis: In 2007, patent attorney Harry Wyckoff (James Belushi) finds a new career path under senator Tony Kreutzer (Robert Loggia), found of the religion Synthiotics and founder of the Wild Palms group, who are developing both virtual reality television and mimizine, a synthetic drug with allows one to interact with the holograms. Wyckoff's life however becomes a complex spiral not soon after. Caught between the war between The Fathers and The Friends. Discovering that his son Coty (Ben Savage) may not be his own. That Kreutzer is a corrupt wannabe demigod, and his wife Grace (Dana Delany) is suffering from her connections to the Wild Palms group, not least because her mother Josie Ito (Angie Dickinson) is a vindictive, violent person and Kreutzer's sister. And that an old flame Paige Katz (Kim Cattrall), connected to Kreutzer, has re-entered his life and stoked a flame that is eating away at both of them.

Beginning with the first scene - a dream sequence with the older brother of Jim Belushi, James, enters his suburban kitchen only to find a rhinoceros there - one is immediately primed for one of the strangest mini-series made for American television. (Fittingly, the second to last episode screened on May 18th 1993, which would've been my fourth birthday, thus another bizarre project which orbits my life among very curious films). Riding the zeitgeist wave Twin Peaks (1990-1991) created, broadcast on the same station ABC and co-produced by Oliver Stone, the result's a peculiar beast. One where Stone's cameo as himself, being interviewed about secret JFK conspiracy documents proving his theories, is the thing that barely bats an eyelid about what is going on throughout the narrative . That a phone line was set up to explain plot points per episode is a sign of where Wild Palms goes.

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The plot of Wild Palms is not that difficult when set out. But there are so many plot points to juggle, alongside the tone the series took, which brings things to a heightened head. The perils of virtual reality. Child kidnapping. The conflict between the fascist Fathers and the heroic Friends who are nonetheless capable of shady tactics to win. Wild Palms has a lot of ambition, struggling at times to tell it. Significantly this is piece of nineties paranoia of the future. It's an area of cinema and television which can be silly - as Wild Palms exists in an alternative 2007 between realities as a time capsule. But it's also touching upon still relevant topics, a fitting landmark among others of peoples' fears at the time. Using the growing craze in VR, back then it was still disconnected from the reality of basic effects and having to wear one of Daft Punk's helmets, it however touches upon pertinent ideas of reality and our growing addictions to fantasies even into the modern day. Whilst we're not yet at holograms, that we are with both virtual reality again and the dangers of technology like the internet blinding us with artificial simulacra, it still stands strong.

However I will also confess that my love for Wild Palms is for its flawed but distinct weirdness. The cast certainly helps, certain performances an acquired taste and yet appropriate for what turned into a melodrama in sci-fi dystopia costume. For James Belushi, it's the least expected role he could have as he is known for comedies and family films (until, in a nice piece of synchronicity, being cast in the 2017 series of Twin Peaks). As our cipher into this world, an everyman who realise his life is more entrenched in conspiracy than believes, he's the actor playing the most muted role which means he's easy to dismiss, but someone appreciated by me nonetheless. Especially as he's the sane cog in the midst of everyone else, with only the sadness of Dana Delany as his wife, in her tragic plot trajectory, a grounded emotional current.

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Robert Loggia, who described his role as Tony Kreutzer in the context of ancient Greek plays when interviewed about the miniseries, chews scenery appropriate for a character who has had people killed and also starts randomly bursting into song in the final episodes, as if an acid flashback to his Al Johnson impersonation in The Ninth Configuration (1980), obsessed with a McGuffin known as the Go Chip which will give him digital immortality. Angie Dickinson, from the likes of Dressed to Kill (1980), however manages to outdo even Loggia as his sister Josie, channelling both Bettie Davis and Joan Crawford from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) with her pronounced makeup and heightened performance; appropriate for a character with an obsession with kidnapping her former husband and Friends leader Eli Levitt (David Warner), and gouging peoples' eyes out. Among these figures also includes Coty Wyckoff (Ben Savage), Harry's son who is both a new TV star and a child sociopath, Ernie Hudson from the Ghostbusters films as a Friends member who becomes addicted to mimizine and can hear church bells as a result, and even Brad Dourif in a small role. Another smaller role by director Kathryn Bigelow, who also directed one of the episodes, has additional pertinence as this feels like a dry run for Strange Days (1995), her dystopian sci-fi epic which also deals with the dangers of technology through artificial memories.

The script itself is clogged with countless references to keep up with, original author of the comic strip and series creator Bruce Wagner actually having to tone down his original version of Wild Palms for television but still creating a dense narrative. When a glib reference here is calling a cafe in the background "Eros plus Massacre", a tip to the hat to a three and a half hour Japanese experimental film by Yoshishige Yoshida, we're in different territory to most television at the time. Then it proceeds to juggle spirituality, references to anything from films to Walt Whitman, and Wagner's own quirks like his obsession, spoken by the characters, of rhinos being fallen unicorns. I could absorb this plot, but I know I missed details, and am aware alongside its melodramatic, heightened tone why a phone line was put in place to keep viewers up to speed as it zooms along. For television, it's like Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow at points.

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If there are problems with Wild Palms, it's that its mad ambition is too much for its presentation. It has the length a work like Strange Days could never have but doesn't have the budget. That wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for Wild Palms not following the idiom "show, don't tell", especially when instead it descends into talking for the last episodes.  Even if it doesn't have the production of a Hollywood film, it was a major TV production and should've taken more time to elaborate on the plot points. To actually depict them. I admire Wild Palms but I'll confess the final episode squanders dynamic weight with important events, like Loggia's failed attempt with the Go Chip or a revolution against the Fathers and the entire political system, being off-screen or barely shown barring a few extras waving signs. For a series with ambition, even scoring a major skirmish with The Animals' cover of House of the Rising Sun, even having The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter twice in the score, the final episode feels chintzy to an extreme.

In spite of this, and the silliness of some of the material, Wild Palms to me was like catnip. The early nineties aesthetic, coupled with a Japanese influence is distinct despite the Japanese economy bubble having already burst by this point, making the paranoia of Japan being an ambitious global influence out-of-date like it was in films like RoboCop 3 (1993). In lieu of this, I also adore Ryuichi Sakamoto's score. Sakamoto, of Yellow Magic Orchestra and a major film composer, seems at first to have made an overtly cheesy and dated score just in the opening credits theme, only for it to fill out with depth that, for this production, is worthy as cinematic in depiction.

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There is also the general madness on display. In spite of its limitations, Wild Palms is weird in an admirable way. Where swimming pools have secret doors at the bottoms, lairs to the Friends' hideouts. That, as in all dystopian sci-fi of the time, there is a slum district which law enforcement stays out of, a Casablanca of rebels and bootleg holograms. The dichotomy between advanced tech, like virtual reality, against issues like the complete lack of internet, living in a subconscious realm outside of our past or future off the television screen. Something deliriously weird that, even if it came after Twin Peaks' popularity, somehow was bankrolled and exists despite the sense it was never going to succeed even as a miniseries. An instant cult work, not contrived but too weird to live.

Abstract Spectrum: Psychotronic/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Low

Personal Opinion:

Merely a slither of Wild Palms creates many questions which, even when answered, opens up so many new questions of where they came from. Even as the TV presentation sabotages its virtues at times, Wild Palms gets by as a bizarre TV melodrama, a product of its time which thankfully exists.

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