Review: 'Wild Inside' follows an owl's journey from captivity to big-city freedom, and how humans cheered for and affected the bird's survival

The thin line between humans and nature is the boundary depicted in director Penny Lane’s absorbing documentary “Wild Inside,” whose hero was the one New York City needed and maybe deserved in 2023.

The Big Apple became taken with the story of Flaco, an owl who escaped his enclosure at the Central Park Zoo and, for a year, lived free around the park and other parts of Manhattan. For bird experts, Flaco’s life outside the zoo was remarkable because he was an Eurasian eagle owl, a species not native to North America. His story resonated in part because he was another immigrant making a life for himself in New York City.

Lane details how the zoo initially tried to capture Flaco and put him back in his home. The zookeepers reasoned that Flaco had never lived in the wild and wouldn’t be able to hunt for himself, but he soon found he could feast on New York’s seemingly inexhaustible supply of rats and mice. The zoo relented, but other bird experts warned of other dangers of being a bird in New York, such as big buildings one could hit or rodents carrying rat poison.

A fair amount of Lane’s documentary is spent following a group of bird watchers, who go out at night with cameras to capture images of the nighttime avian scene. They’re an eccentric bunch, and quite charming. (Two of the birders Lane profiles met while birding and later got married.) Their observations and infrared footage act as a barometer for the health of both Flaco and New York’s non-human population.

Lane — whose past documentaries have chronicled American quackery through animation (“Nuts!”) and the cheeky First Amendment battles of the Satanic Temple (“Hail Satan?”) — finds in Flaco more than the easy fodder for the “and finally” slot on local TV news. She finds a cautionary tale of urban living, one that ponders how humans have created an ecosystem that’s not too healthy for us and downright harmful to every other species with which we share the planet.

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‘Wild Inside’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, August 7, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Not rated, but probably PG-13 for bloody dismantling of small animals. Running time: 95 minutes.