Review: Wolf Is a Muddled Trans Allegory Anchored by Committed Performances

As the film invites us to ponder the real-world circumstances that it implies, its self-seriousness becomes a double-edged sword.

Wolf
Photo: Wolf

Writer-director Nathalie Biancheri’s Wolf begins with Jacob (George McKay), a young man who’s convinced that he’s a wolf, being dropped off by his mother (Helen Behan) at a center designed to treat patients with species dysphoria. As with many of the center’s other patients, ranging from the cheery Rufus (Fionn O’Shea), who believes that he’s a German Shepherd, to the feisty Wildcat (Lily-Rose Depp), known only by the name of her self-identified animal, George can’t help behaving as his inner creature. As such, we frequently see him skulking around on all fours, growling aggressively at anyone who threatens him, and, when given the chance, howling vigorously at the moon.

If you still have doubts by this point in Wolf that it’s been conceived as a metaphor of the trans experience, Paddy Considine’s sadistic conversion therapy leader, The Zookeeper, makes it explicitly clear. His magisterial presence, who treats others to diatribes about humanity’s innate superiority to animals and uses verbally and physically abusive tactics to convince his patients that they’re confused about their identities, recalls any number of outspoken anti-LGBTQ proponents. When he repeatedly screams “You’re a girl!” to one character (Lola Petticrew) who identifies as a parrot, and later nearly has her pushed out of a second-story window until she admits that she can’t fly because she’s human, Biancheri’s sympathies for trans people and abject scorn for those who persecute them are readily apparent.

Still, the screenplay’s implicit correlation between trans individuals and animals is borderline problematic, if only because it so readily recalls the brand of anti-trans rhetoric that assails trans people as subhuman. For their parts, McKay and Depp are admirably committed to their roles, and the film at least has the courage to present its absurd premise without resorting to winks or glib irony. But as Biancheri’s film invites us to ponder the real-world circumstances that it implies, its self-seriousness reveals itself to be a double-edged sword.

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Some of those circumstances, such as the alienation and frustration among the patients that results from the way that they’re constantly told that something is profoundly wrong with them, correlate effectively to the trans experience. Others, though, such as the parents’ belief that their children’s behavior will make them permanent outcasts from society, feel at odds with the central analogy. Parents who reject their trans children are worthy of contempt, but it’s hard not to sympathize with the seemingly loving mothers in Wolf looking for help to deal with their children, because unlike actual trans people, these kids literally cannot function in a human society. If they’re not physically attacking people, they’re generally disruptive or vulgar, as when Rufus pees on the carpet right next to his mom and The Zookeeper.

This moment, and others like it, isn’t played for laughs, but it’s hardly fitting to the overall point the film is making about families who feel the need to “fix” their relatives to conform to social norms. It’s scenes like this, or the entire burgeoning relationship between Wildcat and Jacob, who never once mention their difference in species as a reason not to hook up, that leave Wolf feeling muddled as much in its messaging as its metaphor.

Score: 
 Cast: George McKay, Lily-Rose Depp, Paddy Considine, Fionn O’Shea, Lola Petticrew, Eileen Walsh, Senan Jennings, Karise Yansen, Helen Behan, Mary Lou McCarthy  Director: Nathalie Biancheri  Screenwriter: Nathalie Biancheri  Distributor: Focus Features  Running Time: 98 min  Rating: R  Year: 2021  Buy: Video

Derek Smith

Derek Smith's writing has appeared in Tiny Mix Tapes, Apollo Guide, and Cinematic Reflections.

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