Lily-Rose Depp first made a name for herself in Hollywood when she starred in Kevin Smith’s Yoga Hosers with her famous father, Johnny Depp. The 22-year-old has been racking up more acting projects as of late, such as the sci-fi thriller Voyagers earlier this year and upcoming drama with Kiera Knightley, Silent Night. Alongside her growing resume comes an intriguing drama called Wolf, which she leads with 1917’s George MacKay.
Wolf has Lily-Rose Depp playing a young girl with Species Dysphoria, which is classified as a disorder regarding the belief that one's body belongs to the wrong species. Depp goes by Wildcat, thinks herself to be one and is being treated in a facility that specifically helps people with this disorder. She crosses paths with a new patient, George MacKay’s Jacob, who eats, sleeps and lives like a wolf and has been taken to the same place by his family to be “cured.”
As Lily-Rose Depp says in the trailer’s voiceover, the wolf and wildcat are apparently “natural enemies” but not in the case of Jacob and Wildcat’s relationship. It looks like the two characters will form a bond and perhaps hatch a plan to escape their treatment before being cured. The first glimpse of the movie frames Wolf as a kind of twisted fairytale that has the two core characters wanting to live “happily ever after” but being torn apart by the other powers at play.
Instead of getting better, Jacob and Wildcat look like they’ll enable each other to sink deeper into their “delusions” of really being the animals they feel like they are. But hey who knows, maybe they truly are animals in human bodies? I could definitely see a movie like this pulling some kind of major twist on us, but we’ll have to see it come this December.
The movie was written and directed by Italian filmmaker Nathalie Biancheri, who has previously won awards for her short films. Her first film was 2019’s Nocturnal, and Wolf will be her second full-length feature. The movie premiered at the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month, IndieWire shared that both Lily-Rose Depp and George MacKay go for “full commitment” with their animalistic roles in their review.
Lily-Rose Depp has chosen some rather unique projects throughout her early career in movies already, and Wolf looks to be an especially interesting choice for the young actress. It also allows us to see more from 29-year-old George MacKay, who was unforgettable in Sam Mendes’ 1917 back in 2019 as Schofield.
Wolf is coming to theaters on December 3, on the same day as Depp’s other new movie Silent Night with Kiera Knightley, Annabelle Wallis, Matthew Goode, Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Lucy Punch. While we wait, check out what other movies are coming in 2021 with CinemaBlend’s release date schedule.
