Penny Lane's enchanting film turns the story of Flaco into a true-life nature fairy tale that's like the greatest children’s novel E.B. White never wrote.
Plus IconOwen Gleiberman
Chief Film Critic
@OwenGleiberman See All
David Lei “Wild Inside” is an enchanting movie, and a haunting one too. It’s a documentary about Flaco, the owl who escaped from the Central Park Zoo and spent a year living in the wilds of New York City. Since that story was widely covered when it happened in 2023, turning Flaco into an international media sensation, you might think: Why do I need to see a documentary about it?
The answer is that Penny Lane, the gifted director of “Wild Inside,” has told this tale in a revelatory way, building it like an imagistic storybook from the ground up. From the moment that Flaco, on the evening of February 2, 2023, first appeared on a sidewalk near the corner of 50th St. and Fifth Avenue, standing there as still as a statue, he was surrounded by people filming and photographing him — civilians on their phones, then nature photographers, amateur and professional. Working with the editor Hannah Buck, Lane uses their endless archive of images to craft a true-life nature fairy tale. “Wild Inside” feels like the vérité version of the greatest children’s novel E.B. White never wrote.
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