'Wolf' Review
R: Some abusive behavior, sexuality, nudity, and language
Runtime: 1 Hr and 35 Minutes
Production Companies: Feline Films, Head Gear Films, Kreo Films FZ, Lava Films, Metrol Technology
Distributor: Focus Features
Director: Nathalie Biancheri
Writer: Nathalie Biancheri
Cast: George MacKay, Lily-Rose Depp, Paddy Considine, Eileen Walsh, Fionn O'Shea, Lola Petticrew
Release Date: December 3, 2021
In theaters only
Believing he is a wolf trapped in a human body, Jacob (George MacKay) eats, sleeps, and lives like a wolf – much to the shock of his family. When he’s sent to a clinic, Jacob and his animal-bound peers are forced to undergo increasingly extreme forms of “curative” therapies. However, once he meets the mysterious Wildcat (Lily-Rose Depp), and as their friendship blossoms into an undeniable infatuation, Jacob is faced with a challenge: will he renounce his true self for love?
If you’ve ever seen a psychological drama about patients in a mental institute, aka your One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest or The Miseducation by Cameron Post, the most intriguing aspect of those movies is witnessing how the characters navigate these disturbing places. It gives way for a good character showcase. Needless to say, George MacKay is pretty damn good in his performance as Jacob, a young man who thinks he’s a wolf. The role requires him to do a ton of physical emulation of wolf-like traits in movement and tone and he sells it. Jacob is the audience’s avatar and point of reference through this abusive environment and the more he commits to his wolfish behavior, the more you buy it despite the torturous obstacles he and his peers must face.
While the cast is good and commits to their animal counterparts, the performer who outshines and is transformative in every account is Paddy Considine as The Zookeeper, their stern overseer who tries to revert these animal-identifying people into humans. Despite the young actors who are physically performing as animals, Considine is the most proactive performer with a genuine progression into madness that becomes rampant in his behavior. He goes from intimidating to downright frightening. Considine has been charming in other roles throughout his career, so it was a genuine surprise to see him become this evil, layered maestro of torture.
Conversion therapy is already a bleak and disturbing subject, especially when it's given the central focus of a narrative. Writer/director Nathalie Biancheri applies that harsh environment to species-dysmorphia, and while it sounds conceptual as it evokes some similarities with Lanthimos’ The Lobster, Wolf fails to cast an impressionable howl. As Jacob enters the facility and meets people around his age who all believe they are animals, Biancheri’s script opens a myriad of concepts to explore but never commits to any of them. Once the audience is shown the inner workings of the clinic where patients are treated poorly by The Zookeeper, the story goes through a never-ending repetitious cycle of sequences of shock therapy done to the various species-dysmorphic characters. There are ample areas where Biancheri wanted to spark conversation about conversion therapy facilities or delve into a slow-burning, rebellious uprising, but the film shies away from taking risks or providing entertainment value to be a shallow navigation of a conversion therapy facility. The only notion of a character driven arc comes through Wildcat (Lily-Rose Depp), a feline who Jacob befriends and has been a resident of the facility for most of her life. The two form a mutual attraction to one another and their romance blossoming is the only sense of story that’s present. Once again, on paper it has potential but the execution fails due to the characters not being fleshed out enough and their actors not delivering any chemistry. I wasn’t expecting some John Green-type YA shit, but the only thread that wasn’t based on disturbing imagery was also completely underwhelming.
It doesn’t help that the overall tone is straightforward and overbearingly dark. Initially, some dark humor was incorporated as the other patients were introduced. It was naturally funny up until a certain point and you would think this would be leaned into, but after one or two belly laughs, Biancheri’s script keeps everything as devoid of humor as possible.
Remember how Antebellum was straight-up slavery torture porn? Well, Wolf is that but with conversion therapy for people with species dysphoria. I was gonna make a furry joke but the movie shows it’s more complex than a surface-level joke that can be very relative to queer identites. Shame it doesn’t mean a damn thing considering how Wolf abandons any form of nuance or specialty to be nothing more than a grotesque meditation of the inner workings of psychological institutes depicted in the most dull and hollow way imaginable. Despite the ensemble going all out with their performances, especially Paddy Considine, Wolf had me asking the age-old question regarding frustrating movies: Who was this even made for?!
