‘The Company of Wolves’
Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves is must-see hidden gem. A lush, dark, gothic thriller, The Company of Wolves uses folk lore and fairy tales to examine one girl’s burgeoning sexuality. Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) is a normal, upper class teen girl, but lost in her dreams, she loses herself in a fantastic world straight from Grimm’s Fairy Tales. There, Rosaleen must figure out what her heart truly desires just as her grandmother (Angela Lansbury) warns her to stick to “the path.” Wild wolves are lurking in the woods, but Rosaleen is warned that the most dangerous wolves look like men. Within this larger tale — a riff on “Little Red Riding Hood” — Rosaleen hears and tells a series of stories that look at anxieties about romance and sexuality, through the metaphors of werewolves. The Company of Wolves is glorious, weird, and sumptuous.