It might seem like faint praise, but the best way of describing Patrick Wilson’s on-screen persona is “dependable”.
No matter what the material, he quietly delivers and despite his movie-star looks, he’s never really threatened the A-list, instead plugging away with indie roles and a swerve towards genre cinema. He’s sticking with the latter in his latest, a reprisal of the role of real-life demonologist Ed Warren in haunted-house sequel The Conjuring 2. After that, he’s leaving the jump scares behind (for a bit) with roles in McDonald’s drama The Founder and crime thriller The Hollow Point.
Here’s a look back at his finest films:
Hard Candy
In one of his first films, Wilson showed his total lack of vanity by subverting his jockish good looks to play a seedy sexual predator. The film is essentially a two-hander between Wilson and Ellen Page, who plays his victim turned aggressor; their interplay proved to be uncomfortably intense. It’s a nasty, grimy thriller, and Wilson showed early on that he’d be unafraid to go to the dark side.
Little Children
As the “Prom King” who becomes the object of affection for housewives in suburbia, Wilson provided the requisite charm needed to convince us of their obsession. But with his complicated family life and extramarital affair with Kate Winslet’s smugly superior local mother, he also delivered a believable portrait of a man struggling to remain afloat in circumstances he didn’t expect.
Lakeview Terrace
While it might have descended into overheated silliness at the end, Neil LaBute’s underrated thriller managed to provide a genuinely uneasy look at post-Obama race relations in the US. Samuel L Jackson’s racist cop is pushed over the edge when an interracial couple moves in next door and he begins a campaign of hate to make them move. Wilson is the engaging everyman, shocked by the anger his marriage has wrought.
Young Adult
Jason Reitman’s cutting comedy about the damage high school can inflict is centred on Charlize Theron’s savage ex-prom queen who returns to her hometown to win back her teenage sweetheart, well played by Wilson. He appears sweetly oblivious and somewhat simple throughout, but there’s more going on: he’s ultimately revealed to be painfully aware of the chaos surrounding him.
Bone Tomahawk
His more high-profile horror jaunts might have been bigger at the box office, but this offbeat cannibal western gave him far more to do than any Insidious chapter. It’s a curious and unpredictable film that sees Wilson searching for his missing wife in 1890s America. While his character is less showy than those around him, he grounds the B-movie madness with pathos.
