Movie Thoughts: The Wolf and the Lion (2021)

• Released: September 25, 2021
  
• Directed by: Gilles de Maistre
• Running time: 1 h 39 min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

After the death of her late grandfather, a young woman named Alma inherits his property, an island in Canada full of nature, and decides to go live there. She quite abruptly ends up with both a lion cub and wolf pup at her property, and against her godfather's will she takes them in and raises them as her own. The two unlikely brothers grow up together, but when one day they and Alma are separated, they'll have to figure out a way to be together again.

My Thoughts

I have actually reviewed one lion-centric movie by Gilles de Maistre before, Mia and the White Lion. I liked that movie, but had some qualms with it when it came to the handling of the (very real) animal actors. The same kind of applies here.

But first I'll tackle the other elements. The story I thought worked...mostly. It's about how family isn't always who you are related to but just the ones you love. Alma has no family left outside of her godfather, but she still takes in these animals and decides to raise them, and the trio become inseparable. When they are separated due to circumstances (Mozart the wolf ends up in a re-wilding project, Dreamer the lion at a circus, and Alma is left alone) they do everything to get back together and stay that way. Even without Alma, Mozart still manages to escape and tracks down Dreamer, freeing him and both vanishing into the wild to look for a way home to Alma's place. Of course, Alma herself also tries her best to track them down, but this proves rather difficult especially when special troops are sent after her escaped wild animals to shoot them on sight.

A wholesome story, but it also feels a bit...plot hole-y. First of all, how in the world is Alma paying for all of this, not just her late grandfather's property and house (which is huge, by the way), but also feeding two large predator animals? Hint: those need a lot of meat which is not cheap to come by. In the start of the movie Alma is set to become a professional piano player, so that would imply that she has a job and therefore can pay for all this. But she gives up this dream in order to look after her animals about fifteen minutes into the film, and she never gets another job after all this. Am I just supposed to believe she can afford not only this giant house and property, but also a shitton of meat for these animals? Sorry, that just doesn't feel realistic. 

Next, the whole plot threat of Alma not being allowed to keep Mozart and Dreamer, and both animals being wanted for being dangerous (to the point of being hunted down by a SWAT team) is just...never really resolved? She wants the animals, she goes to look for them with the help of Eli and later Raphael (who hates the circus and animal abuse), son of the circus owner. The circus owner chases them down and objects, but eventually decides to give up his claim on the lion and goes home with his son.

Nice and all, but the SWAT team is still after the lions, and the animals are still technically not Alma's since she's keeping them without any license or permits, no matter how much she loves them and they love her. In the end and with more help of Eli and her godfather Joe, she and her beloved animal companions do outwit the SWAT team and get the trio back home...but what then? The whole concept of Alma illegally owning these animals is never addressed after that. The SWAT team is never again mentioned. The movie just...kind of ends.

There is a final scene, of course, where we see Mozart and Dreamer play on Alma's property while Alma preforms an outdoor concert in front of an audience...but that's it. No final conclusion about that, nothing further dealing with the authorities who should very obviously be involved here even after she gets them back.

Remember, these were the two animals she A) illegally owns/owned and B) caused a huge uproar and were slated to be killed on sight because they were deemed a threat to humans. So like, even if they do find a way to resolve all this...shouldn't this be shown or even just at least told to the audience? Right now it's just all set-up and there's no real conclusion to these conflicts. The authorities just magically don't get involved anymore and Alma is somehow allowed to keep both Dreamer and Mozart without any reason given. That's a lot you're expecting an audience to just blindly accept especially since these were huge plot points in the movie earlier.

That aside, the movie does have some other things going for it. Beautiful landscapes, likable characters, heartfelt moments. It's nice. But to address the elephant (or I guess, lion and wolf) in the room...the animal handling. Like Mia and the White Lion, this movie pretty much exclusively uses real animal actors and no CGI, puppet or animatronic stand-ins. Which does raise some ethical questions. Like, for this movie they actually raised a wolf pup and a lion cub together; Mozart and Dreamer's actors aren't just together for these scenes in the film. And of course there's whole lot of direct human-wild animal contact which is just iffy to say the least. 

I get why they did it (to really get across the bond between the trio, would've been hard to do otherwise) but morally it just feels a bit off to hand-raise a wolf and lion together especially if they're going to be constantly interacting with people (well, mostly Alma herself). Poses all sorts of dangers and ethical questions and honestly with us having CGI or great practical effects nowadays I really wish they used those more often. Not to completely substitute them for the animal actors, but just to lessen it. I don't know, this is a complex issue but it just doesn't really feel right to me.

I also want to go on a brief tangent related to Mozart here: He's a snow wolf, an in-universe fictional wolf subspecies which is threatened and Eli (initially an antagonist but later an ally) is in charge of a re-wilding project of. He breeds them and when the time is right he releases them. I was at first a bit disgruntled to see the re-wilding project being constantly talked down and the characters there being antagonists (since these projects are actually quite good and noble, at least to me), but thankfully they did turn around. Also, I do like how Eli was wise enough even back when he was an antagonist to not try and release Mozart into the wild: he fully knows that Mozart is too tame for that. So while I initially felt a bit iffy about the snow wolf project people being antagonists, they did come around and they're not really bad guys or anything. The movie just initially portrays them a bit badly and it does seem to (briefly) take a pro-exotic pets stance. Which I'm very against, if you know me.

I also found it funny how the wolfdog they got to play Mozart's mother is obviously that: A wolfdog. Mozart's animal actor (outside of the movie universe) is very clearly a wolf or at least a very high-content wolfdog, but his mother just doesn't look very lupine to me. She probably does have a bit of it in her, but she doesn't really pass as a wolf to me. Which is just a bit jarring, I don't know, it never really works for me when people try to pass of something that's obviously not a wolf as one. Especially with her son looking far more wolf than she is. Not that this affects anything for the movie, it was just distracting to me.

Overall this is a good movie but I do have some qualms with how it initially portrayed the keeping of exotic pets and wolf re-wilding project, as well as with the ethics of using real animals for a film like this. If you can look past that and a few plot holes, though, this is still a pretty genuine and heartfelt film. Not perfect, but I like it enough.