Wolfman – what could have been.

The movie itself is utterly stupid, but it could have been an interesting film. I’ll write some ideas inspired by the film, and from here on out Spoiler alert. But really, it’s such a stupid film that there is no reason to go and you can just read what I write here anyway.

I like films where the supposed line of man and animal is investigated, so even if it seemed it would be a bad movie, I was hopeful.

The film starts with a woman reading a text saying that even the pure of heart can become a Wolfman. My first reaction was that it’s bad directing as the voice was all wrong, but then it occurred to me that one of the things which bothered me was that it was a woman’s voice rather than the usual man’s voice. I took note of this and then when the film continues it was clear that we are not dealing with a wolfman but a Wolfwoman. The title is there only to note how werewolves are usually portrayed as men.

Interesting twist. Why are werewolves always men and not women? The movie is an inversion and a rereading of the werewolf as a woman.

Love can release you from the curse, but sadly it turns out that the hero’s mother didn’t love his father enough and remained a werewolf. In her despair she took her own life. The son becomes attracted to a character we are told is similar to his mother, another werewolf, but he doesn’t love her enough (or she love's him) and she kills him, and hopes to replace him with his brother.

There are some other things, but it’s a reasonably interesting until a suspicion starts sinking in. All this has never entered the idiot screenwriters mind and we are dealing with an obvious, stupid, werewolf story where his father is the werewolf who killed his mother and brother and calls for the beast to be unleashed.  The women are nothing more than beautiful china whose love is there to try to save the cursed werewolf. The film chauvinism, or the world chauvinism, never ceases to amaze. (I continued and went to From Paris with Love where the writer seems to have gone through a messy divorce and is misogynistic to the extreme, rather than simply chauvinistic.)

How did such a movie, such a badly directed movie, get all of these actors?

To avoid!

If you want to see a great Wolf movie, Mike Nichols Wolf is a must, with Jack Nicholson and the mesmerizingly beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer. There also there is the question of love, and Wolfwoman, but I won’t reveal anything.