William is a 2019 drama about scientists who create a Neanderthal man who must learn to exist in a world where he is the ultimate outsider.
We are blessed, or perhaps cursed, in being the only species (as far as we know) able to ask ‘why?’ It’s saddled us from the start with a hunger to discover where we came from and where we are going, and more so, if indeed we are unique and significant. Some reach for the deep recesses of space while others explore the atomic abyss, each searching for the answer to that singular question. Naturally, the movies have embraced this wonder in grand fashion, from the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey to, well, Encino Man and more, falling on all rungs of the genre spectrum.
Now comes director and co-writer Tim Disney‘s latest effort William, about a quest to learn who we are by bringing to life a Neanderthal. It’s an interesting idea, not entirely original of course if you did see the Brendan Fraser film mentioned above, though 1984’s Iceman starring John Lone is a far superior (and highly-recommended) movie on the same sort of subject. William is a much smaller affair than both those titles, like the latter, taking itself very seriously in trying to showcase our own prejudices and perspectives on natural history. It is ripe with unusual potential and features, by no surprise, plenty of questions, though pushes its message a little heavily and in the end, fails to give this impact it deserves.
We meet ambitious doctors Julian Reed (Waleed Zuaiter) and Barbara Sullivan (Maria Dizzia), he a university professor teaching about the links between modern humans and our ancestors and she a specialist who thinks she can bring that link to life. While funded by the school, they work for two years to develop the method but are told not to proceed to the last step, but you know, why go this far and not make the leap? The couple get married (by Elvis in Vegas) and Barbara carries the child to term, delivering the first Neanderthal to exist on our planet in 40,000 years. All good until the public loses interest, the couple split after disagreements over how best to nurture the boy, and William (Will Brittain) himself, the child, deals with a time and place his brain isn’t designed to handle.
It’s hard to get a handle on William, a film that refuses to get past the literal, dealing with the most basic of hurdles in dealing with such a scientific marvel, propping up the boy as a metaphor for anything different that tests our group levels of tolerance. It’s saturated with soft-touches and light imagery that sticks to a movie-of-the-week mentality about any fill-in-the-blank ‘different’ kid story with obvious bullies, narrow-minded detractors, simple romance, and other easy to connect the dots plot points that don’t offer much for a challenging experience.
William is played well by Brittain and does what he can with what he’s given, the story meant to reposition the idea of ‘cavemen’ as stupid lumbering oafs, making him a sensitive type who can’t wrap his head around symbolism and metaphors but is nonetheless a strong academic. This would work, and work with profound significance, if only the script would allow him to explore more of humanity than the simple baser moments and dialogue he encounters. Real violence, passionate sex, greed, humiliation, betrayal, companionship and so much more are either superficially skimmed over or outright avoided, the film more focused on simple perceptions of intelligence and the cookie-cutter roles of mother and father than truly giving William the chance to face the real world.
It ends with a misguided and unearned finale, including a last shot that is hollow and contrived. The thing is though, the parts are all there and all of this could have been a deeply-satisfying experience with proper gut punch that tasks its audience to consider the ‘why’ like it should, but instead is content to be generic filler, despite how earnestly it tries.