I’ve recently been developing a notion that Craig Johnson and Daniel Clowes‘ Wilson might be a fall/holiday release. Because it sounds good, for one thing, and would therefore “elevate the season”, and because it seems like my kind of film. You know what I mean. A smart, sardonic, character-driven, vaguely pissed-off movie that’s nonetheless “funny” in an LQTM way.

On top of which it’s a father-daughter relationship movie that’s not Toni Erdmann. That in itself makes me feel favorably disposed. Because it’s not fucking Erdmann.

Anyway, forget it. Fox Searchlight announced today that they’re opening Wilson on March 3, 2017. Presumably because they’ve calculated that it just doesn’t have that award-season schwing. Wilson costars Woody Harrelson, Laura Dern, Isabella Amara, Judy Greer and Cheryl Hines.

Based on Clowes’ graphic novel and set in Minnesota, Wilson might otherwise be described as a nice, downbeat-hipster fuck-you movie about “a confrontational misanthrope who desires a deep connection with other people, but whose aggressive interpersonal style thwarts such relationships.” You have to presume it’s fairly good because Clowes wrote Ghost World and High School Confidential, and because Johnson directed The Skeleton Twins. Right?

Fox Searchlight copy: “Harrelson stars as Wilson, a lonely, neurotic and hilariously honest middle-aged misanthrope who reunites with his estranged wife (Dern) and gets a shot at happiness when he learns he has a teenage daughter (Amara) he has never met. In his uniquely outrageous and slightly twisted way, he sets out to connect with her.”