Everybody loves a misanthrope, right? Well, maybe not everybody, but there’s a long American tradition of giving it up for the curmudgeons and the cranks, especially when they can make us laugh. Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken, George Carlin—they cut through the bullshit, they say what we’re all thinking, and don’t abide fools.
The latest crotchety sage to amble across movie screens shaking his fist at human foibles is Wilson, the title character in director Craig Johnson’s adaptation of Daniel Clowes’ 2010 graphic novel. As played by a game Woody Harrelson, Wilson is a sour but secretly soulful middle-aged cynic who lives alone with his terrier Pepper, surrounded by stacks of paperback books. He spends his days trying (and failing) to be avuncular to strangers in coffee shops and railing against the isolating effects of computers and cell phones.