Rent Wolf (2021)

Eccentric but involving ... - Wolf review by NP

Wolf has a terrific cast, and it’s just as well because the story – and the way it is told – relies a huge amount on the players.

This is exactly the kind of production the excesses of drama school caters for. Main players George MacKay and Lily-Rose Depp star as Jacob and Wildcat, part of a group of mainly young people who believe they are birds and animals. Paddy Considine is also very good as The Zookeeper, whose brutal methods of therapy blur between brazen cruelty and viciously curative – we’re not sure which.

What develops isn’t easy to define. Part horror, part possible love story, but bizarre on all levels, the results are not uninvolving, but seem to meander before some sort of conclusion is reached. Watching this is certainly an experience, and kudos to director Nathalie Biancheri for trying something so unorthodox, and the brilliant cast for entering into it so wholeheartedly. My score is 6 out of 10.

Strange Drama That Doesn't Really Work - Wolf review by GI

An offbeat drama that lacks a satirical edge and is played very, very straight losing along the way its central message. George MacKay, who clearly takes his role very seriously, plays Jacob, a young man who suffers from a mental illness where he believes that inside he's really an animal, in his case the wolf of the title. His despairing parents (we get to hear that Jacob has previously attacked someone) send him to a clinic where he joins a group of other children and young people who suffer from the same condition. The various members include a squirrel, horse, German Shepherd dog, a parrot and a girl who claims to be a wildcat (Lily-Rose Depp), and with whom Jacob bonds. Overseeing these patients is a doctor (played by Paddy Considine) who cruelly makes them attempt dangerous acts in their animal personas that will force them to acknowledge they are human. The obvious theme that human society craves normality and strives to outcast or normalise those who see things differently is obvious. Ultimately I found the film a bit ludicrous and it felt like I was watching a drama school exercise. The message that is being delivered here remains too murky to hit home leaving us to assume there's a weak allegory to trans issues perhaps, I just don't know, which results in a film that lacks a certain aspect that could have made it very interesting.

VERY disappointing, pretentious, pompous,slow, forgettable, arty Polish-Irish film with a great cast - Wolf review by PV

This is neither a horror or a thriller - no scares or thrills. Not a comedy either. No laughs at all,. Not a satire that I can see either.

SO what is it? a pompous pretentious mess is what.

I only give this 2 stars due to the great cast esp George MacKay who I first noticed in PRIDE (2014) though he was a child actor before that in PETER PAN and more from age 11. The THE THIEF LORD and JOHNNY AND THE BOMB aged 13. It sure helps to be posh and at private schools agents visit and to have parents working in the TV and film industries...

Paddy Considine phones it in (watch THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS instead, a great virus end of days film). Johnny Depp's Nepo-baby gets a starring role too.

I see it has been compared to the awful film called THE LOBSTER which I have 1 star and reviewed thus: "This film is called 'The Lobster'. It should be called 'Preposterous pretentious unfunny Eurotrash fantasy drama'. It clearly thinks it is so clever and original - but it really is not. Theatre and film have done all this surrealist absurdist stuff a great many times over the last 100 years."

I really wanted to like WOLF but would recommend people watch AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON instead of maybe GREYSTOKE if they want a wolf shot.

1 star; plus 1 more for George MacKay who will win best actor Oscar one day for sure.