Film Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Wolf
Directed by Mike Nichols
Columbia TriStar Home Video 06/94 DVD/VHS Feature Film
R - language, werewolf attacks

In Wolf, Jack Nicholson is Will Randall, a New York book editor whose claim to fame is his taste and individuality. However, these character qualities are no longer in demand. As a result, he expects to be fired by the tycoon who heads the media conglomerate which controls his publishing house. He finds out later that the new boss has been courted and convinced by his ruthless protege.

Everything changes for Will after he is bitten by a wolf on a country road in Vermont. His senses become hypersensitive — he can read without his glasses, he can hear far away conversations,and he can even smell the tequila on the breath of a co-worker.

"I feel as if the wolf passed something along to me, a scrap of its spirit in my blood," Will tells Laura Alden, the tycoon's black sheep daughter. Feeling more alive and stronger, this suddenly rejuvenated middle-ager is ready to take on both his protege and his boss. But Will is also apprehensive about where his wolfishness will lead; several times he awakens in the morning with blood on his hands and can't explain why.

A visit to an expert on animal possession only confirms his ambivalence about what is happening to him. The old man tells him, "It feels good to be a wolf, doesn't it? Power without guilt, love without doubt."

Thanks to the nuanced direction of Mike Nichols and the multileveled screenplay by Jim Harrison and Wesley Strick, Wolf is a very literate film with its unique treatment of mid-life crisis and its incisive look at the predatory world of New York publishing. Nicholson gives his best performance in many years, and Michelle Pfeiffer is appropriately seductive as the jaded rich girl who finds this good and civilized man to be both exotic and erotic. Christopher Plummer as the media tycoon and James Spader as Randall's despicable protege are both convincing.

It would be unfair to reveal the path Randall chooses in the end but I can tell you that Laura confides in him, "Maybe there are happy endings even for those who don't believe in them." Don't miss "Wolf". It will speak to both your inner animal and your civilized soul.

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by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat