After winning a writing competition, she travels to New York to get approval from a publisher for her novel, Wise Blood, but refuses the request that she outline her work.

An Irish priest counsels her about her internal struggles; she mentions James Joyce's Ulysses being banned in Ireland, which he agrees is needless.

The film ends with an intertitle shown before the closing credits to inform the viewer that O'Connor continued to live for another fourteen years, eventually succumbing to what she called "the French wolf" (lupus).

The final on-screen text after the credits is her quotation about her gratitude to thousands of pigs whose pituitary glands were used for making the lupus injections that kept her alive.

In January 2023, it was reported that Laura Linney, Philip Ettinger, Rafael Casal, Steve Zahn, Cooper Hoffman, Willa Fitzgerald, Alessandro Nivola, and Vincent D'Onofrio joined the cast.

The website's consensus reads: "Wildcat brings careful craft and solid acting to bear on an admirable idea; unfortunately, it still struggles to present a compelling picture of a brilliant author's inner life.