'Wolves' is cliché-ridden and predictable
The movie stars Michael Shannon and Carla Gugino as an alcoholic novelist who's in debt to gangsters and his wife, respectively.
Taylor John Smith as Anthony Keller in Bart Freundlich’s 'Wolves.'
Courtesy of Juanmi Azpiroz/IFC Films
I checked out Bart Freundlich’s “Wolves” because it features two of our finest actors, Michael Shannon and Carla Gugino. Shannon plays Lee, an alcoholic novelist who teaches writing at a New York community college and is heavily in debt to gangsters because of his gambling addictions; Gugino is Jenny, his loving and suffering wife. Their son, Anthony (Taylor John Smith), is a high school basketball star on track for a scholarship to Cornell.
It’s all terribly cliché-ridden and predictable, and the best I can say for it is that Shannon and Gugino do their best to convince us otherwise. Grade: C (Rated R for language throughout and brief sexuality.)