The Wolfpack is a fascinating study of life lived on movies alone. They shape the Angulo family’s personalities, leading to some hilarious spot-on recreations, but the accompanying isolation breeds anti-sociability and extreme introspection.

Wolfpack’s editing starts to feel like exploitation, with the heavy use of unsettling music used to paint the family as reclusive weirdos, rather than people to sympathise with. At the same time, there isn’t quite enough interrogation of father Oscar’s key role in keeping his family away from society. Mother Susanne’s contributions are particularly touching, but elsewhere the film sticks to its oddball message.

The Wolfpack is an intriguing portrait of an accidental social experiment, but the narrative created to support it is too disjointed and skin-deep to really resonate.

RATING 3/5

INFORMATION

CAST: Bhagavan Angulo, Govinda Angulo, Susanne Angulo, Oscar Angulo, Mukunda Angulo

DIRECTOR: Crystal Moselle

SYNOPSIS: Locked away from society in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the Angulo brothers learn about the outside world through the films that they watch.