The Wolfpack

Crystal Moselle’s intimate portrait of a family of seven homeschooled kids confined for most of their lives to an apartment in the Lower East Side of New York City plays like an extended but bloated student film. This amateur quality is stylistically fitting because the siblings in this family get almost all their understanding of the outside world from movies, and they've remake their favorite pictures down to the smallest details. These kids pull off rather amazing home movies, constructing props and costumes from the limited household materials they have access to in their hyper-isolated world. It’s also fascinating to watch their behavior and the way they talk about themselves. At least it’s fascinating at first, but the more time we spend with these characters, the less interesting they and the film become. Moselle seems to only scratch the surface of complexity that may lie within this bizarre scenario. Unfortunately, just because a documentary has a fascinating subject doesn’t make it a great film.