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Wakefield

Wakefield

Drama · 2017

A man's nervous breakdown causes him to leave his wife and live in his attic for several months.

Movie details

Wakefield

“What would your life be without you?”

2017 Drama 1h 46m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

6.3 / 10

18.5K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

74 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

62 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

6.1 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

A man's nervous breakdown causes him to leave his wife and live in his attic for several months.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Wakefield?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Die My Love

Die My Love

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Alex of Venice

Alex of Venice

Drama · 2015

After her stay-at-home husband leaves her, a workaholic lawyer finds that she is not completely up to the tasks of caring for her young son, ailing father and household all by herself.

Cardboard Boxer

Cardboard Boxer

Drama · 2016

Gentle and broken, a homeless man fights others on video for money but soon finds comfort in an unlikely friend and the lost diary of a young girl.

The Thing with Feathers

The Thing with Feathers

Drama · 2025

Following the death of his wife, a young father's hold on reality crumbles, and a strange presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons.

Julien Donkey-Boy

Julien Donkey-Boy

Drama · 1999

Undiagnosed, untreated and generally untethered schizophrenic Julien lives with his pregnant younger sister, anorexic aspiring wrestler brother, sympathetic grandmother, and severely depressed and abusive German father.

The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees

Family · 2008

Set in South Carolina in 1964, this is the tale of Lily Owens a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father, Lily flees with Rosaleen, her caregiver and only friend, to a South Carolina town that holds the secret to her mother's past.

Requiem for a Dream

Requiem for a Dream

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The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.

The Tenant

The Tenant

Thriller · 1976

A quiet and inconspicuous man rents an apartment in Paris where he finds himself drawn into a rabbit hole of dangerous paranoia.

Suddenly, Last Summer

Suddenly, Last Summer

Thriller · 1959

The only son of wealthy widow Violet Venable dies while on vacation with his cousin Catherine. What the girl saw was so horrible that she went insane; now Mrs. Venable wants Catherine lobotomized to cover up the truth.

Where it lives

Watch in your region.

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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Robin Swicord

Written by

Robin Swicord

Bryan Cranston

Bryan Cranston

Howard Wakefield

Jennifer Garner

Jennifer Garner

Diana Wakefield

Jason O'Mara

Jason O'Mara

Dirk Morrison

Beverly D'Angelo

Beverly D'Angelo

Babs

Ian Anthony Dale

Ian Anthony Dale

Ben Jacobs

Pippa Bennett-Warner

Pippa Bennett-Warner

Emily

Ellery Sprayberry

Ellery Sprayberry

Giselle

Court is in session

Put Wakefield on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Adrenaline Seeker

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.