"Wakefield" by Robin Swicord (2016)

The very first movie I saw in 2018 was this interesting drama - nothing ever happens without reason, so the movie came my way just when I was seriously pondering my professional life: how easy would it be to just step away from it all and simply leave stress to others. It is also highly unusual movie in a way that it completely avoids almost everything that recent cinematography focuses on - special effects, car crashes, explosions and crowd pleasing brutality - this is sophisticated, serious work of art where the only dialogue we hear comes from the main character cackling and laughing to himself. Its also tour de force of acting, marvellous work by Bryan Cranston.

Howard Wakefield (Cranston) is a successful businessman who at the beginning of the movie walks trough Grand Central Station like God, checking his cellphone and making decisions but during one particular Twilight zone evening, just as he arrives home from work, something distracts him and he ends in a empty house opposite of his own. From the attic window he peeks at his own family, lights, wife, children and life he had - in a spur of the moment, Wakefield decides not to return home - perhaps it was just a cruel joke played on his wife (later we find out that marriage was loveless) that he meant to finish in the morning, but when dawn arrives, he decides he is not going back. In fact, he is not even going back to work, to Hell with it all. From now on, Wakefield lives like hermit in the attic of the empty house, laughs at the people he sees from the window and gleefully spies on his family - who, to his biggest surprise, after initial shock seems to get on just fine (in fact, they are far happier without him). With time life simply goes on, with family next door enjoying sudden freedom, while Wakefield himself realises he might have been to oppressive and tyrannical with them - as for himself, he is completely free from the previous life, credit cards, cellphones and business - now he metamorphoses into trash man, unkempt and bearded, who roams the garbage cans for food. I found it absolutely fascinating and highly unusual work of cinema, quite unforgettable.