There are some ’80s movies that seem to know exactly what they need to accomplish. Then there are the ones that start somewhere and end up in completely different places. This one begins with a buttoned-up businessman and an unpredictable woman. But there’s also a freewheeling road trip. There’s also a blooming romance, a great soundtrack, and plenty of offbeat comedy. For a while, you think you’ve got the whole thing figured out—but you really don’t.
The movie eventually takes a much darker turn. Not immediately, which is what makes it work. By the time things start getting uncomfortable, you’ve already settled into the lighter side of the story. Then along comes a young actor in his first movie role. Audiences didn’t know his name yet. They certainly didn’t know what he would become. Looking back now, though, his arrival is one of those great early-career moments where you can see a star before everybody else does.
The movie starts out with a deceptively simple premise. Jeff Daniels plays Charlie Driggs, a successful, cautious businessman whose life gets turned upside down after he meets Lulu, played by Melanie Griffith. She’s spontaneous. He’s not. She decides they’re going on an adventure, and Charlie, for reasons that become increasingly questionable, goes along with her. It’s funny, offbeat, and very much an ’80s movie. Then Ray Sinclair enters the picture. Ray is Lulu’s ex-husband, and Liotta immediately gives the character an uncomfortable presence. He’s not introduced as some obvious movie villain. There isn’t a giant warning sign hanging over his head. He’s charming and confident. He knows how to talk to people. And there’s something just a little bit off about him.
That’s where Liotta really gets you. Ray can be perfectly calm in one scene and suddenly make you wonder what he’s capable of in the next. But he doesn’t have to scream. He doesn’t even need to explain himself. Sometimes Ray just looks at somebody, and you get the message instantly. The contrast is what makes it work. Something Wild had been this funny, offbeat road movie, and now there’s this guy standing in the middle of it who seems capable of turning the whole thing upside down. That’s a pretty good trick. And considering this was Ray Liotta’s first movie role, it’s even more impressive. He had already worked in television, but movie audiences were still getting their first real look at what he could do.
Liotta had spent years working in television before Something Wild. His roles included a run on Another World, but this was his first major big-screen role. That makes the performance even more interesting when you know what came next. This wasn’t Liotta after Goodfellas, bringing the intensity audiences already expected from him. Nobody knew yet what Ray Liotta was going to become. He was just this relatively unknown actor playing a character who walks into a funny, offbeat movie and suddenly makes everything feel considerably more dangerous. Not exactly the easiest introduction to the big screen, but he made it work.
What’s fun about watching Ray Sinclair now is knowing where Liotta was headed. You can even see little hints of what would make him such a great fit for Goodfellas. Ray is a different kind of guy, though. He can be funny one minute and make you uncomfortable the next, sometimes without even trying. That’s what makes the performance stick. Liotta doesn’t come into the movie trying to be the biggest badass in the room. He doesn’t need to. He just plays Ray, and somehow that’s enough. Then you remember this was his first movie role. That’s the part that gets me. He was still figuring things out, and somehow he already had that presence.
And how can you mention Ray Liotta and not think about this famous scene between him and Joe Pesci? It’s cinema gold.
Ray Liotta would go on to give plenty of performances that made audiences nervous. Something Wild is where he first showed just how good he could be at it. There’s something fitting about discovering him here, before the fame, before Goodfellas, before everyone knew that look. He walks into this movie almost like a warning the audience hasn’t learned how to read yet. Years later, we know exactly what we’re looking at. A star was already there. He just hadn’t been introduced properly yet. Hollywood eventually figured it out. Charlie Driggs probably wishes somebody had warned him first.
