Yikes! Werewolves are living amongst us in this six-episode comedy/drama from writer/director Abe Forsythe, and that’s just the opening premise; there’s tonnes more idiocies to be piled up before Wolf Like Me comes to an uncertain ending. With each episode having the length of a sitcom, this feels like a feature film divided into in six parts, offering little more than one extended scene at a time to move the action forwards.
Josh Gad plays Gary, a single-dad and widower in Adelaide who is struggling to connect with his daughter Emma, who is just 11; a route forward arrives in the form of Mary (Isla Fisher), a wild-haired journalist who crashes into their car in the first episode. Gary fancies Mary, and the feeling may be mutual, but Mary has a substantial skeleton in her closet; she’s a werewolf, and that’s something of a deal-breaker in the Australian dating scene. Worse still. Mary’s diet of chickens, goats and unsuspecting Italian families isn’t enough to keep her full, and if she gets pregnant, she’s got plans involving eating her own young…
Wolf Like Me is a slick show, and there’s something to be exhumed from the metaphor created by linking menstruation to lycanthropy. But Forsythe takes forever to get to the point, and once it comes, a couple of passing bad guys have to be chucked into the narrative to enable Mary’s instinct to protect Gary’s family make sense. While Gad and Fisher are lively, unconventional performers, neither of them convince as a couple struggling to find purchase in a world where supernatural forces disrupt their goal of domestic ennui.
Wolf Like Me is watchable enough, but it also feels like a busted pilot from the get-go; even the Twilight films managed to make something more of dressing up ancient myths in modern day stylings. Perhaps something closer to John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London was intended; Wolf Like Me aims high, but ends up howling at the moon with some deeply implausible parental angst.
Was this not mean to be a film? I remember a trailer along this premise.
It felt more like a film than a streaming series; the lines are getting blurred…
The lines are going round in circles.
Werewolves still happening? Thought they’d been cast aside with the Orks into supernatural purgatory.
I’ve been cast aside by the Orks, it’s not as bad as they say.
Are you calling Paddington fans Orks, Dix? Just digging yourself deeper, mister…
I am a true Paddington fan, not in thrall to the beady eyed imposter.
I don’t know what this says about me, but this statement gets my interest/attention:
“Mary’s diet of chickens, goats and unsuspecting Italian families isn’t enough to keep her full, and if she gets pregnant, she’s got plans involving eating her own young…”
I’m a sucker for vampires/werewolf romances and a loud and proud Twilight fan.
It’s too bad that this one doesn’t sound like it’s worth watching…….but it does sound like it might ring my guilty pleasure bell.
…and it might just work for you, very short episodes, and a strangely jaunty tone make it super-easy to watch. That’s not to say it’s good, or a must see, but there’s a germ of a good idea to play with, and if you can handle the premise, it’s worth a spin…
Series doesn’t offer anything new, cliched dialogue by the dad, and unfinished storylines IMO. Brilliant phrase ‘ …something to be exhumed from the metaphor!’ Simone Beauvoir tried to do it in her book The Second Sex (and Ginger Snaps, cult classic, also waded into bloody pool–see A. Miller’s article in Western Folk Lore “The hair that wasn’t there before:’ Demystifying monstrosity and menstruation in ginger snaps/unleashed.”) It feels clever, meshing the moon, psychological suffering and real pain of transforming from girl to woman/human to wolf) with myths that might be something more–then add in changing morals…the attempts to link mensuration with motherhood, to affirm all animals are wild beasts. It’s a bit like flight club too–and what happens in fight club, stays in fight club. Aroooooooo PS, some claim Lycaon, Greek Arcadian king cursed by Zeus to be a werewolf is origin story. Zeus, however, never cursed mortals. I think there’s a far more interesting origin story……hmmmm
Exactly. I watched this because I liked the idea, and at least they have some fun with it. But unfinished storylines for sure, I assumed it had two episodes to go when it abruptly ended. Werewolves should be equally men, women, trans and non-binary, there’s no reason at all that it should be men, and there’s a number of reasons that women should have these powers; after all, the moon has power over us all…
Nope.
How rambunpcilious of you.
Pfft.
I doubt there’s much to be exhumed from the metaphor linking menstruation to lycanthropy, but I’ll have to take your word for it since I won’t be seeing this.
Everyone is talking about this is 2022! It’s the new military dogs with PTSD!
Not 2022 in my time zone. They’ll have to drag me into the twenty-first century kicking and screaming.
Menstruation metaphors are the new rock and roll. Fact! Everyone is talking about it, from Olaf the snowman to Pixar! Get with the beat, baggy! You can’t live in Queen Victoria garb forever!
Wasn’t this the point of Ginger Snaps? Or is that movie old enough now to get referenced here as ancient pop culture history?
Ginger Snaps went out with Ginger Rogers! No, there’s not much referencing here, but not much new either. It’s no Cat People either.
Is it a Dog People? What if she turns into a great big slobbery St. Bernard? And not Cujo either but Beethoven?
This is what I watched last night. The dog is called Dakota, and the little girl is called… Alex! hahahahhahahah. Review coming soon!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEC9ZcV-ehk
Wow. The looks hokier than menstruating werewolves.
A lot hokier.
That’s how I roll.
There was also The Curse 1999 (based on real life ‘bad time of the month’ killing) and Angela Carter feminist edged faery rewrites like the Bloody Chamber. Romulus, wherefore art thou?
FFS, as usual, your comments are better than my actual review. Wish I’d thought of The Bloody Chamber and other Carter re-imaginings when I wrote my review….curses indeed!
What if origin story RE Lycaon, Greek Arcadian king cursed by Zeus to be a werewolf is wrong? Zeus never cursed mortals. I think there’s a far more interesting origin story……ahrrrooooooo
You obviously know Zeus better than I do, and I do appreciate the ahrooooooo!