Synopsis
Jacob, a man who believes he is a wolf trapped in a human body, is sent to a clinic by his family where he is forced to undergo increasingly extreme forms of "curative" therapies at the hands of The Zookeeper. Jacob’s only solace is the enigmatic Wildcat, with whom he roams the hospital in the dead of night. The two form an improbable friendship that develops into infatuation.
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Cast
- George MacKayJacob
- Lily-Rose DeppWildcat
- Eileen WalshDr. Angeli
- Paddy ConsidineThe Zookeeper
- Fionn O'SheaGerman Shepherd
- Lola PetticrewParrot
- Karise YansenAnnalisa
- Darragh ShannonSquirrel
- Martin McCannDr. Sullivan
- Helen BehanJacob's Mother
Recommendations
- 80
Los Angeles Times
Sometimes Wolf is slight, relying on mystery and metaphor to build suspense, but Biancheri’s sense of narrative adventure imbues this survivalist picture with more than uneasiness. She gives it tenderness. - 75
Chicago Sun-Times
Writer-director Nathalie Biancheri treats this potentially sensational material with sensitivity and empathy, though Wolf sometimes careens in the direction of a pure horror film and introduces some late elements that border on the grotesque and seem superfluous to the main story. Still, this is an involving and dark fairy tale, with great performances from MacKay and Depp. - 70
Arizona Republic
Writer and director Nathalie Biancheri’s film explores the lives of those living as “The Other,” outside society’s norms. It requires commitment on the part of the actors and the audience. It’s a worthwhile investment. - 67
Austin Chronicle
Superficially, Wolf may seem like an entry into the queer canon, and it's not hard to see superficial similarities between the facility and a gay conversion therapy facility, or to superimpose transphobia onto Jacob's diagnosis of species dysphoria. - 61
Paste Magazine
Equal parts captivating and cringey, writer/director Nathalie Biancheri’s Wolf flounders in the face of articulating its own thesis. - 60
The New York Times
Wolf may lead with an open curiosity, but in tackling big ideas about identity, openness is not always enough. - 50
Washington Post
Being oneself is (or, again, seems to be) the theme of Wolf, which at times plays like a clumsy allegory about, say, the challenges faced by trans youth — there’s a poster on the wall of the clinic about “species dysphoria” — yet most of the time is simply a more generalized fable about finding your groove, your bliss, your true, inner self — and running with it (naked, if need be, and on all fours). If it’s an allegory, it trivializes whatever it’s allegorizing. - 50
The A.V. Club
What’s certain is that a stronger, more searching exploration of this scenario—one not so starkly conceived in terms of victims and villains—would have gone a long way toward alleviating potential misgivings. Wolf is so thin that one can’t help but look right through it.
