Watch The Wolfpack

The Wolfpack is an indie documentary film that delves into the intriguing lives of six siblings who were raised in complete isolation from the outside world for almost their entire childhood. The movie, directed by Crystal Moselle, explores themes of freedom, adolescence, creativity, and the human will to escape. The Angulo brothers – Bhagavan, Govinda, Eddie, Narayana, Mukunda, and Krsna – are the children of Oscar and Susanne Angulo. The family lives in a small apartment in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, with the father's mental illness keeping him largely confined to the house. The mother, meanwhile, home-schools the children and is their main link to the outside world.

The six siblings spend most of their days cooped up inside their apartment, watching films and reenacting them in impressive detail. They are allowed outside only sporadically, and they usually have to keep their heads down and avoid talking to strangers. The only exception is when they attend an Hare Krishna Temple.

Despite their sheltered life, the children are remarkably articulate, intelligent, and aware of the outside world. They talk about their desire to explore the city and the world, and how they look forward to their one outing a year to the cinema. They use the movies they watch as a window into the world beyond their four walls, and they become skilled at crafting their own costumes and sets.

The Wolfpack's greatest strength is how it captures the brothers' creativity and ingenuity. They make their own masks, weapons, and costumes from cardboard boxes and old materials, and they act out scenes from movies like Pulp Fiction, The Dark Knight, and V for Vendetta. They start recreating entire films, using dialogue and stage directions from published scripts.

The film takes a turn when one of the brothers, Mukunda, leaves the house for the first time in his life and sets off on his own. He makes connections with filmmakers and other creatives in New York, uses his family's love for films to make short documentaries about them, and ultimately uses this as a way to reach out to his family about wanting freedom to venture into the world.

The director avoids getting into the details of the family's dynamics, leaving much up to the audience's interpretation. We never find out why Oscar raised his family in isolation, nor do we see much of Susanne's motives for agreeing to it. The boys seem to love and respect their parents, but they also express their frustration and anger towards them as well. Most of the family drama is left unsaid, yet it looms large over the story.

The Wolfpack is a fascinating look into one family's unique journey. It is a poignant and emotionally charged portrait of how cinema can act as a gateway to the world beyond, and how one family's love for movies allowed them to connect with each other in extraordinary ways.

The Wolfpack is a 2015 documentary with a runtime of 1 hour and 29 minutes. It has received mostly positive reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 7.0 and a MetaScore of 75.