Director Timothy Hines Opens Up About the Vision and Visual Alchemy Behind Upcoming Comedy The Wilde Girls

From a legacy of Paper Moon to Buster Scruggs: Why This Depression-Era Comedy Is Wilder Than It Looks. A whimsical, character-driven survival comedy rooted in real stories and inspired by classic American cinema with a twist.
Los Angeles, CA - With The Wilde Girls preparing to open in theaters May 30th, filmmaker Timothy Hines is sharing the story of what inspired the project-and why this offbeat survival comedy is unlike anything else on the big screen. When Hines set out to make The Wilde Girls , he didn't just want to make people laugh-he wanted to capture the collision between absurd privilege and primal survival with the visual charm and emotional depth of America's most memorable storytelling traditions.

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Above: The Wilde Girls filmed in the forested and rural areas of Waashington State in the Pacific Northwest - courtesy of Pendragon Pictures

Set in 1932 during the Great Depression, The Wilde Girls follows pampered sisters Tinsley and Mattie Wilde-two clueless socialites who find themselves penniless and lost in the untamed wilderness with nothing but sarcasm, designer shoes, and a bounty on their heads.

The film stars Cali Scolari, daughter of the late Emmy-winning actor Peter Scolari, in her debut feature role, alongside Lydia Pearl Pentz and Teddy Smith, New York's favorite stand-up comic. Directed by Hines and produced by longtime collaborator Susan Goforth, the film is already generating buzz for its heart, humor, and striking visual style.

"This is what happens when Clueless meets The Revenant, " says Hines. "But really, it's about stripping everything away-privilege, identity, comfort-and discovering who you are when there's nothing left but your instinct and heart. It's a love letter to American grit-with style.

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Above The Wilde Girls courtesy Pendragon Pictures

Beyond the laughs, The Wilde Girls draws visual and emotional inspiration from iconic American films such as Paper Moon , O Brother, Where Art Thou? , and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs . Hines explains that those films shaped how he approached the aesthetic and storytelling language of The Wilde Girls .

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Above and Below: The Wilde Girls, courtesy Pendragon Pictures.

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"I was deeply influenced by the surreal but grounded quality of Buster Scruggs. The way the human world feels painted onto the land. I wanted to create a human world presented with stylized, dreamlike precision-while the wilderness remains raw, dangerous, and alive," Hines explains. "In The Wilde Girls I leaned into that style to make human construction feel theatrical and artificial. I wanted the constructed human spaces-cabins, towns, cars-to almost feel like a memory or a fantasy like The Wizard of Oz. I approached the human made world as a surreal, stylized dream, sets and constructs appear hyper-staged and slightly otherworldly. while the forest remains starkly real, present, and deeply emotional. In this story, the wilderness is its own character: unpredictable, brutal, but also breathtakingly beautiful."

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Above: The Wilde Girls courtesy of Pendragon Pictures

Indeed, the forest plays a powerful role in the film-not just as backdrop but as a force the characters must reckon with. All outdoor scenes were shot on location in the untamed, forests of Pacific Northwest's Washington State, providing a tactile, immersive world for the story to unfold.

Market testing has revealed critical early praise and audience appeal, a positive response to The Wilde Girls. It resonates strongly with audiences. Viewers praised the film as "more than just a send-up of entitled Karens"-calling it "funny, heartfelt, and refreshingly human but with surprising depth."

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Above: The Wilde Girls courtesy of Pendragon Pictures

"It's not mocking," says Hines. "It's embracing. It's a story about transformation, humility, and family-about realizing there's more to life than status or wealth. The message is timeless: we need each other more than we need accumulated comforts."

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Above: Cali Scolari as entitled heiress Mattie Wilde, Lydia Pearl Pentz as clueless Tinsley WIlde and Teddy Smith as mountain man Silas Colter in The Wilde Girls courtesy of Pendragon Pictures

While undeniably comedic, the film aligns with the emotional core of titles like Little House on the Prairie , reminding us that hardship can lead to strength, and that caring for one another is the only real path to survival.

As the global success of Anyone But You (starring Sydney Sweeney) with $220 million in earnings shows, there's a strong box office appetite for comedy with heart. The Wilde Girls joins that tradition, offering humor without cruelty, and optimism without sentimentality.

Media Contact
Company Name: Pendragon Pictures
Contact Person: Susan Goforth
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