Movie Review - The Wolfpack

The Wolfpack ** (out of 5) (R) This documentary about the Angulo family offers more creepiness and incredulity than insight. Somehow, a domineering father and his acquiescent wife raised six sons and a daughter in Manhattan without allowing any to leave their apartment for most of their lives, well into adolescence. He even kept his wife from contacting her own parents for many years. The kids were home-schooled, gaining all other knowledge of the outside world from a stock of over 5,000 movies on VHS and DVD. Deprived of other stimulation, the boys became obsessed with films, making their own, and acting out the ones they favored - heavy on action fare - with the likes of Pulp Fiction and Goodfellas topping their charts. Boys will always be boys in any environment.

This film combines recent interviews with footage of their childhood pursuits and chronicles many of their eventual forays beyond the doors of their virtual prison. It’s all presented by the sons in a surprisingly matter-of-fact tone, with more humor than judgment. Intriguingly, the confinement and social isolation weren’t enforced by physical abuse. Somehow, the dad convinced everyone to buy into his paranoid view of the surrounding culture, and just stay put, amusing themselves with the flicks and their own imaginations.

For some, their story might exemplify the resilience of human spirit, since the lads seem to be entering adulthood with more emotional stability than any shrink would expect. For others, this degree of sequestration occurring in the middle of our largest city would seem like one of Saturday Night Live’s longest and least amusing skits. Let’s hope no one thinks the film serves as a new primer on parenting. (6/26/15)