Kiernan Shipka and director Matt Smukler talk 'Wildflower' at TIFF 2022 - Interview
7:38 | Uploaded on Sep 19, 2022
Born to intellectually disabled but defiantly independent parents, Bea (Kiernan Shipka) has always experienced a life different from that of her friends. For a while the family lives in a van, but even once they are installed in a house there are constant challenges with regards to getting her parents to work on time and tending to basic needs such as cooking and cleaning.
Bea feels obliged to take care of her parents. She gets a job doing pool maintenance and, though she is an exceptional student, she ignores the pleas of her high school guidance counsellor to apply to colleges that would take her away from home. In any case, Bea might not actually make it to graduation: at the beginning of the film, she's in the hospital in a coma, surrounded by family. She doesn't remember how she got there, or if she’ll ever regain consciousness.