JUNE 23, 2015
“The Wolfpack” offers a fascinating premise for a documentary. Six brothers (and their little-seen much-younger sister) have been confined to their Lower East Side apartment for much of their lives by their fearsome father, who fears for their safety and possible contamination by society. Despite being allowed out of the apartment for a few days a year, most of the world that they know comes from their extensive DVD collection, which leans heavily on horror and Tarantino.
Their chief source of diversion is transcribing the scripts of their favorite films and acting them out, complete with homemade props and costumes. The Batman outfit (above) is particularly ingenious, being made out of old cereal boxes and yoga mats. And seeing the boys dashing around the flat shooting their prop guns and overemoting is kind of creepy fun for a while.
But as the film progresses, the elephant in the apartment looms ever larger. Just what the hell is going on here? Is there some kind of physical abuse or emotional terrorism that the alcoholic father Oscar is inflicting on his children and his scared-of-her-own-shadow wife? Oscar is elusive throughout the film, and when director Crystal Moselle finally gets him to sit down and answer questions, she lobs a few softballs and doesn’t follow through. The film frustratingly begs the same question throughout its 85 minutes.
When the boys finally summon the nerve to break free, they frolic in the surf at Coney Island and dress up smartly for a night on the town, which they spend watching David O. Russell’s “The Fighter” at a local movie theater. (That film will undoubtedly be the newest addition to the boys’ list of apartment theatricals.) Watching the outside world through someone’s fresh eyes can be immensely satisfying, but any episode of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” accomplishes that goal more effectively than the entirety of “The Wolfpack.”
Grade: B-
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