Tag Archives: Lily-Rose Depp

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Sheep’s Clothing

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Wolf

by George Wolf

More metaphorical than Cuckoo’s Nest, more elusive than Girl, Interrupted, and with less satirical bite than The Lobster, Wolf brings a few other films to mind. But like many of her characters, writer/director Nathalie Biancheri is committed to her own different animal.

George MacKay is hypnotic as Jacob, a young man suffering from species dysphoria. He believes he is a wolf trapped in a human’s body, and when we first meet Jacob, his distraught parents are dropping him off for an extended stay at a treatment center promising a cure.

Once inside, Jacob meets others in similar circumstances: Parrot (Lola Petticrew), German Shepard (Fionn O’Shea), Duck (Senan Jennings), Horse (Elsa Fionuir) and Wildcat (Lily-Rose Depp) – all patients under the domineering thumb of The Zookeeper (Paddy Considine).

Though enemies in the wild, Wolf and Wildcat become drawn to each other within the confines of the treatment center. She’s mysterious, with privileges the other patients don’t enjoy, which comes in mighty handy when Wolf starts resisting The Zookeeper’s increasingly harsh methods.

Biancheri’s metaphor for conversion therapy certainly isn’t hard to pick out, but on a wider scale, her film speaks not only to ignorance toward the LBGTQ+ community, but to a universal push for conformity across all lanes of society. To The Zookeeper, a happy and productive life comes only when you accept what is expected of you, and while Biancheri often juggles different tones within this theme, she is able to craft several moments of powerful humanity, including a structured lesson on laughing that will just about break your heart.

MacKay (1917, The True History of the Kelly Gang) is such a wonderful actor, and it’s no surprise that he’s able to uncover Jacob’s inner conflict with a touching, understated depth. But even beyond that, his command of the role’s animal physicality is powerful and striking.

As Wolf and Wildcat grow closer, MacKay and Depp (also impressive in a comparatively underwritten role) often seemed locked in to an acting school exercise on primal instincts that left the rest of the class in the dust.

There’s more than enough here – from the narrative core to the stellar ensemble to the clinical production design and beyond – for a compelling and thought provoking parable. But while Biancheri’s ambitions are bold and worthy, her second feature (after 2019’s Nocturnal) can’t quite settle on a species.

Such commitment to a unique identity is certainly thematically consistent, but a more streamlined focus may have made the finale feel less abrupt, and brought more clarity to Wolf‘s high concept vision.

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Everything Adults Do

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Voyagers

by Hope Madden

If you have ever wondered what Lord of the Flies might look like in space, Neil Burger thinks like you.

The generally mediocre director (The Upside, Limitless, Divergent, etc.) follows a manned vessel in search of the next planet we can ruin. Or not. Maybe our better natures will win out.

Voyagers is the journey toward that new home. The crew doesn’t really know Earth—they were the result of specifically engineered donors, raised indoors so they wouldn’t miss open spaces, and will spend their whole adult lives on the ship. Their children will, too. But their grandchildren will be the first generation to see the new planet.

Naturally, this is only going to work if nothing kills them and they don’t kill each other before future generations can exist.

Scientist and father figure Richard (Colin Farrell) will shepherd them through as much of the journey as he can, but the future of the human race is in the hands of these young people.

Essentially a YA space fantasy, Voyagers is not without its charms. Tye Sheridan and Fionn Whitehead lead a cast of convincingly naïve geniuses. The conflict is obvious (especially for those who read Golding), but Burger zigs and zags enough to keep your interest. The director’s knack for encapsulated action and his sharp cast’s baser instincts create some B-movie thrills.

The nature versus nurture argument gets a quick nod, but Burger (who also wrote) isn’t especially preoccupied with the why. The immediacy of the fact that it just is requires more attention.

Science fiction tends to be heavily allegorical and heavily borrowed—Voyagers is certainly both of these. Although the execution feels a bit like a neutered version of Claire Denis’s brilliant 2018 cosmic horror High Life, the story itself looks to the distant future to illustrate our present (and very, very recent past).