George MacKay and Lili Rose-Depp play people who think they are a Wolf and a Wildcat in Wolf. What a shame that the film doesn’t do anything interesting with this intriguing concept. Read more in our Wolf review below:
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. (Focus Features)
Wolf has a great concept, that is sadly wasted.
It’s about a topic we haven’t really seen before. The film takes place in a medical institution, which is the home to people who suffer from a special kind of disorder. They think they are animals. The protagonist Jacob (George MacKay) is the newest patient, as he thinks he is a Wolf. So the film follows him through his meetings with other patients, like Fionn O’Shea’s German Shepherd or Lily Rose-Depp’s mysterious Wildcat, and his treatment sessions with the mean and diabolical leading doctor of this institution, who the patients refer to as the zookeeper (Paddy Considine).
The problem the film faces is the solution. The audience leaves the film exactly how they entered it. We didn’t learn anything new, as the film also has no idea, we don’t get a solution, because the film still has no idea what it wants to tell. The dedicated performances by the entire cast, especially MacKay and Rose-Depp aren’t enough to save it.
You could argue that Wolf is at least captured in some surprisingly great cinematography, which I would instantly sign if it wasn’t for the fact that you often don’t even see what’s going on. A good chunk of the film takes place at night or in dark corridors or rooms, with basically no lighting. That doesn’t really suit directors Nathalie Biancheri’s affection for the use of close-ups, because you simply can’t see what’s going on.
With a runtime of *only* 98 minutes, the film still manages to feel stretched and repetitive. I am not even talking about its predictability from start to finish. Wolf is a film that doesn’t know what it wants, which is a shame because an intriguing topic like this seems to have a lot of story possibilities.
Wolf is a lot of wasted potential and an absolute snooze fest. Dedicated performances and some theoretical nice cinematography can’t save this film from being a miss.
This Wolf review gets a 2.5/5
The film is currently in theatres.
Wolf is written and directed by Nathalie Biancheri and stars: George MacKay, Lily Rose-Depp, Fionn O’Shea and Paddy Considine.
What do you guys think? Are you planning to watch it? Have you seen it already? if so how did you like it? Have you even heard about this movie before this? Let’s discuss everything in the comments down below and on our Twitter.
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