The Taylor Swift and ‘Gone Girl’-Inspired Series About Female Revenge
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It’s no accident that Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” plays over the opening credits of Prime Video’s new limited series Wilderness. The song, which appears in its rerecorded version, came at the suggestion of writer-producer Marnie Dickens, who felt that the vengeful lyrics mirrored the show’s storyline perfectly.
“Marnie wrote that song into the script for Episode Two, but then Prime asked Marnie if there was a young female artist she wanted [over the credits],” recalls So Yong Kim, who directed all six episodes. “Of course she said Taylor Swift. It’s just perfect.”
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The series, based on B.E. Jones’ novel and premiering Sept. 15, centers on Liv (Jenna Coleman), a conflicted woman who has followed her new husband, Will (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), to New York City for his high-powered job. She’s a dutiful wife — until she discovers Will has been cheating with his hot co-worker, Cara (Ashley Benson). Filled with rage, Liv sets out on a frenzied path of revenge. Her instinct, as portrayed in the first episode, is to kill Will for what he’s done. In other words: Look what he made her do (which also serves as the show’s tagline.)
“When I read the pilot and the second episode, I felt like, ‘Oh, I know, that feeling. I know that emotion of wanting to kill off my husband,’” Kim says, partly joking. “It just seemed so connected to me. [I remember] when I was seven months pregnant, I was driving my car out of the house and he was taking the trash can to the curb. I saw him and I was like, ‘Oh, if I just let go of this brake then the car would just naturally roll down and run him over.’”
The episodes take several twists and turns, with the action bringing Liv and Will on a great American road trip and back to New York. The series was shot primarily in real locations in New York City, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Whistler, Banff, and Vancouver because Kim wanted to immerse the characters in the landscapes. In Episode Two, Liv and Will arrive at a resort in the middle of the woods where they run into none other than Cara and her boyfriend Garth (Eric Balfour). The chaotic nature of the location mirrors Liv’s inner turmoil as she seethes with fury about Will’s betrayal.
“It was about bringing this tension between the setting, which is vast and wild, and then internal texture of Liv’s character, which is much more psychological and emotional,” Kim notes. “But that’s also a wilderness in itself.”
For inspiration, Kim looked to thrillers like Gone Girl, as well as relationship dramas like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Revolutionary Road. The director wanted to tap into female rage, but she also wanted to examine why women feel like they’re not enough — a theme that recently emerged in Barbie as well.
“Liv is smart and intelligent and beautiful, but in her mind that is not enough,” Kim says. “Because she is trying to be somebody else for her husband. There’s this conflict of who she is deep inside that’s different than the person who is trying to meet the expectations of her husband. There’s always a tension between that, and it propels the story. But sadly, I feel like even in 2023, women have so much of that still in our culture. When are we ever going to be freed from that?”
Viewers who have read the novel may be surprised by Dickens’ adaptation, which offers a loose adaptation of the book’s events.
Note: Some light spoilers for Wilderness appear after this point.
In her effort to punish Will for his crimes, Liv inadvertently kills someone early on in the show. The murder sends Liv on a chaotic trajectory where she becomes more and more immersed in a series of lies and coverups. Shooting the murder scene was challenging because it takes place in the woods, at night, in heavy rain that was faked for the production and required Coleman to channel a serious bout of rage.
“As a character, she’s making a journey into the wilderness and the storm [to look for Will]. She has to build the momentum and the energy,” says Kim. “It was the very last thing we shot in Vancouver after some 60 days of shooting. So really, she was releasing tension that had been built up over those 60 days. She’s not completely sober — she’s in this blurry metal state — but she intends to kill him.”
Although Liv set out with the intention of offing her husband, she is far less calculating than you might assume.
“She doesn’t quite have a plan,” Kim explains. “But I think you can look at it like she let it happen. Or she was in charge of making it happen. In the cosmic world of everything, you make one decision and it ricochets into another obstacle, and then she has to make a choice of following path A or path B. So you could say she either created her own situation or she just let things happen to her. It depends on how you view her actions. It depends on who you are. As an audience member watching her, it’s about what you would do.”
As the show progresses, Liv makes increasingly poor decisions. Another character ends up dead, and it’s clear Will is not going to let her exit his life without a fight. She’s ravaged with guilt, but also wants to be free of everything. For the viewer, Wilderness offers cathartic insight on what would happen if you killed someone and had to deal with the aftermath.
“You can say in figurative speech, ‘Oh my God, I want to kill that person.’ But then what if that does happen to you?” Kim says. “How would you cope with that? What are the after-effects? What is the emotional damage you’re going to incur by doing that act? The intimacy of that experience being shared with the audience is very important. Because I wouldn’t actually want to kill anybody personally, but I’m glad that Liv does it because she’s doing it for me, and I get to experience that journey through her.”
As her life spirals further and further out of control, Liv undergoes a startling transformation.
“She’s never going to be the same,” says Kim. “It’s like Frankenstein. You get patched back together and then you’re walking around, but you’re not completely whole again.”
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