Werewolf movies are notoriously difficult to pull off. They either end up extremely smart and unique — Ginger Snaps, An American Werewolf in London, Dog Soldiers — or they lean too far into the cheese that they become caricatures of themselves — Teen Wolf and whatever is going on with Jacob in Twilight. Maybe it’s because it’s kind of hard to make a human turn into a wolf on screen without it seeming tacky, but it also might be because the werewolf as a mythical monster is just kind of misunderstood.
Thankfully, Jacqueline Castel gets werewolves. She gets them so much that her debut film My Animal, about a young woman suffering from a werewolf curse, is absolutely something to howl about. The film follows Heather (Bobbi Salvör Menuez), a young woman with a love of hockey who also happens to be the victim of a werewolf curse that’s been passed down through her family. Both she and her father are afflicted, and in order to prevent themselves from being discovered (or doing harm to those they love) they chain themselves to their beds whenever there’s a full moon. But when Heather meets a local figure skater named Jonny (Amandla Stenberg), her desire to spend time with her new friend begins to outweigh her ability to abide by her strict curfew. Eventually, things come to a head when Jonny’s boyfriend intervenes in her and Heather’s relationship, but Heather is not one to give up without a fight.
On the surface, the plot of My Animal seems fairly straightforward. Castel’s film leans heavily into the “werewolf = queerness” metaphor, and though it’s an allegory that’s been utilized many times before, Castel manages to keep her version from feeling overwrought with symbolism even when the symbolism is extremely overwrought. This is due in large part to the fantastic acting on Menuez’s part. She commands attention, straddling the line between innocent human and violent beast with a poise that’s electrifying. Bryn McCashen’s cinematography is also phenomenal, uplifting the action on screen with moody, vibrantly hued shots that perfectly capture a Canadian 80s ennui. The score supplied by Augustus Muller is like the cherry on top, completing the film’s moody, moon-drenched atmosphere with his synthy, menacing compositions.
If there’s anything that My Animal falls short of doing though, it’s its lack of dedication to the characters in the film. Heather and Jonny are both enticing on screen, and their attraction to one another is palpable. But by the film’s end, viewers are left with more questions than answers about them. This isn’t always necessarily a bad thing, but in the case of My Animal, it would have been nice to feel rooted in more specific details about the film’s two main women rather than having to try and work out their back stories from awkward interactions with family and friends that conceal more than reveal. The film’s ending may also be a letdown for some viewers, though with just a few more scenes, it could feel rightfully earned. As it stands right now though, the revelation that audiences are supposed to have in the movie’s last moments falls flat. Still, for a debut film, My Animal is an exceptional movie, leaving us all to wonder what Castel will give us to sink our teeth into next.
Photo courtesy of Paramount Global Content Distribution
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