Wolf - A thriller that tries to expose patriarchy through an interesting idea but falls short in its final leg!

Bharath Vijayakumar

It is heartening to see how Malayalam cinema keeps finding ways to expose patriarchy through different genres. It is not just the hard hitting arthouse films like The Great Indian Kitchen that exist to try and make a difference. A film like Ishq and more recently Love pulled the rug from under your feet. These two films were primarily positioned as thrillers and they work as thrillers but the message that you take away from them was the whole point of those films.

Wolf in a way is very similar to Love. This is also a film where almost the entire narration happens inside a household with just a handful of characters. Sanjay (Arjun Ashokan), a hot headed guy pays a surprise visit to his fiancée Asha (Samyuktha). Asha seems to be a reluctant host and is in a hurry to bid him goodbye. But an unforeseen situation forces them to be together for the night.

Director Shaji Azeez sets it up well in the initial hour. A certain uneasy tension is built up and there is a definite urge to find out where things are going to head. But the film loses its grip in the final leg. The film stops showing us what it wanted to either visually or through character development and resorts to having explicit dialogues to convey the message. This explicitness works against the film. Think of it and this starts right from the title. Ishq and Love were two movies that showcased how patriarchy (at times) manifests itself in the name of love. Something similar happens here but what we have here is a very apparent title - Wolf. In the former films, the takeaway was that even seemingly good and normal men might have patriarchy and misogyny ingrained in them. But things are more like black and white here. (A strange coincidence is that Shine Tom Chacko is a part of all these three films. His part here though is negligible)

The bigger problem in Wolf is the ease with which characters change their stance without any strong reasoning. And this reflects in the performances too. We expect a reveal or a payoff towards the end but the climax is a letdown. It is not about how the story concludes but the way in which it happens is what is a dampener.

Bottomline:

Wolf has an interesting idea and is a pretty decent thriller till a point. It then loses its way.

Rating: 2.5/5

PS : Streaming on Zee5