An allegory about a few different things rolled into one with George MacKay playing a man convinced he if a wolf. With that being said, IMO this needed to lean into the absurdity and crazy about 35% more than it did. They are all playing this 100% straight and could have benefited from being a dark comedy instead
Focused on the species dysphoria, the protagonists replace their humanity with animals. The wolf Jakob describes himself as writing that he "doesn't live in the body that he should". This metaphor about trans identity is built on growing adolescents, subjected to a "zookeeper" therapy that is as useless and violent as conversion therapies. The difficult thing is to fit in a society that does not accept distortions.
I enjoyed that and it was different but the ending could of been better and had more to it. Some decent acting from George Mackay.
I don't know how true this movie is in its depiction of the disorder that Jacob and his fellow patients suffer from. But whether its authentic or not, this is a decent movie that is likely meant to be taken as a parable about the harm caused by conversion therapies.
Review by jxnxxrBlockedParent2021-12-26T03:15:39Z
Behaviorism has been a theme and source of criticism in the cinema ever since it was concepted, but it was popularized with Kubrick and even inconsciently writers and directors continue to expose how dangerous and brutal it can be.
Wolf is an incredible movie, with it's core on social criticism but it's soul on human identity and the suffering of having to addapt to what the world have decided for you.
Lily Rose-Depp and Paddy Constantine give us amazing performances, but the highlight and what holds the movie and all of its themes together is the terrific performance of George MacKay. We've seen him do it before, but never with so much dept and pain, he makes us feel exactly what the caracther is feeling, therefore the movie can be painful and unconfortable to watch.
The movie is not about a mental disorder, probably is based on clinical lycanthropy, a type of psychosis, but it looks nothing like in the movie. The movie is about freedom, pain, to give in to your nature and discovering what it really is.
Wolf can be read in many ways, interpreted with your own struggles and that's what makes it such a perfect film.
I will not forget George MacKay and this criminally underrated performance, it will stay in my mind for a very long time and I'm glad for it.