‘Wolfs’ and Charismatic Personality Disorder
Wolfs’ two lead characters are just Brad Pitt and George Clooney in leather jackets.
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Successful actors have a certain charisma, a charm—this isn’t exactly a revelation1. I could walk into a room filled with people I’d donated organs to and no one would notice me2. George Clooney or Brad Pitt walk into a room and the place would go crazy, and not just because they’re famous, but because of that charisma. The charisma is why they’re famous.
Don’t get me wrong: Acting is a skilled profession, and not everyone can do it, or do it well3. Just being spectacularly good-looking is no guarantee of acting success4. And writing can be challenging, too—like creating a character that feels like a real person, someone with autonomy whose decisions surprise you. When you have actors with spectacular charisma, however, you can get away with some relatively lame writing, because the actors will bring enough personality and spark to their performance to make up for it.
And then you have a film like Wolfs, starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney as themselves.
My Car. My Guy. Fuck You
Wolfs has a pretty decent setup: A public figure named Margaret (Amy Ryan) gets into a bit of a jam when a young man she picked up in the hotel bar appears to die of a drug-influenced accident in her room. Panicked, she calls a number she was given a long time before and connects with a Cleaner (Clooney, identified as Margaret’s Man in the credits). He agrees to come and help her out of her situation. Margaret’s Man is middle-aged and not at his peak5, but he’s smart and good at his job.
While he’s in the middle of it, however, another cleaner (Brad Pitt, billed as Pam’s Man) shows up, hired by the hotel’s owner, Pam (Frances McDormand’s voice). The hotel is wired up with cameras, so Pam saw the accident and set a clean-up in motion separately6. Pitt and Clooney are “lone wolfs” who hate working with someone else, and they are prickly with each other—but a lack of trust pushes them into forming a temporary and uncomfortable partnership.
Things get complicated, as these things do. There are drugs, a not-quite-as-dead-as-they-thought body, New York City itself with all it’s traditional frustrations. It’s a pleasant little stroll with some fun sequences, but what it isn’t is a character study, as Margaret’s Man and Pam’s Man are just Brad Pitt and George Clooney clowning around, being charming, and ... that’s it. There are no characters there. It’s just two really charismatic guys with very famous public personas coasting along on clouds of charm7.
He's Not a Prostitute
The reason guys like Pitt and Clooney get paid a lot of money to perform is because people like watching them do stuff. They’re charming! Effortlessly so. It’s a lot of fun watching these two guys riff off of each other and pretend to be amiable badasses. And the film does have a thin thread of subtext centered on male loneliness, as these two lone wolfs slowly come tom realize that they are, in fact, very lonely and would love to have a best friend who happens to be just like themselves8.
But there’s very little effort to make the two characters into characters instead of Brad Pitt and George Clooney. In part this is intentional, as the characters are meant to be mysterious—no names, no background. And they distrust each other initially, so neither is volunteering any information. They’re also intentionally written to be very similar in background, professional approach, and personal philosophy. As a result, both actors not only get a pretty shallow character template to inhabit, they both essentially get the same character template9. And proceed to just sort of goof around as themselves.
Cast your mind back to Ocean’s 11, if you dare, and consider the same two actors in a similar situation: Playing basically the same character template and sharing a lot of screen time. But Danny Ocean and Rusty Ryan felt distinct because the actors brought different energies to the roles. You got the sense that these were long-time associates who liked and trusted each other, who had a shorthand way of communicating, but Ocean’s chip-on-his-shoulder glowering, Ryan’s constant snacking and good cheer meant you could tell their characters apart. In Wolfs they could have switched roles in the middle (and how knows, maybe they did!) and no one would notice10.
The film supposedly had a sequel in the works that was torpedoed when Apple decided not to release it in theaters, instead burying it on Apple TV like they were embarrassed (and where they don’t have to admit any kind of viewership numbers). It’s probably done very well for itself there, due to yokels like me who pushed a button because Pitt and Clooney kind of guarantee a good time, but writer-director John Watts was apparently so displeased about this decision he tanked the sequel. No one’s clamoring for it, though. Wolfs is a pleasant way to doze off on the couch, but it’s not essential for anyone’s film education. Unlike this newsletter, which totally is11.
The movies always make being a Cleaner seem pretty easy. All you need is a willingness to process dead bodies and a skill with cleaning products12, as far as I can tell. Sign me up. I’m starting to think this writing gig isn’t going to work out.
NEXT WEEK: Joker: Folie à Deux is a lot of darlings.
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Successful writers on the other hand have a certain … ability to function in society at a minimal level.
I need my organs. So I can sell them. For food money. Because I’m a writer. <bursts into tears>
Just ask all the cops who have pulled me over during the course of my life and not believed my whole “racing to the hospital to donate my organs” routine.
Being spectacularly good-looking is also no guarantee of literary success, I’m sorry to report.
Sadly, I am middle-aged and absolutely at my peak, which tells you a lot about where I was in my youth.
If I was important enough for people to send Cleaners on my behalf, there would be a lot of Cleaners, is all I’m saying.
Is Coasting Along on Cloud of Charm the title of my memoir? You know it isn’t. Maybe Coasting Along on Clouds of Booze Fumes and Grievance.
It is absolutely true that adult men don’t make friends easily. It is also true that this is generally okay. Friends are always forcing you to, you know, leave the house and do things.
Part of growing up, of course, is realizing that every single person on the planet can be categorized into about a dozen basic personality categories.
To be fair, you can pretty much switch out any random middle-aged cis white dudes and no one would notice. For example, the real Jeff Somers died in 2009 and was replaced by another fleshy weirdo who drinks whiskey and plays guitar and none of you noticed!
Please remind everyone that this newsletter is free, so their failure to sign up for it is kind of insulting.
I have one of these skills. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out which one.
There's a connection between this movie and bringing the Dire Wolves back from extinction, but I won't be able to form it until I start my day drinking in earnest.