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Teddy
France 2020
produced by Pierre-Louis Garnon for Baxter Films, Les Films Velvet, The Jokers, Canal+, WTFilms, Indéfilms, SofiTVciné
directed by Ludovic Boukherma, Zoran Boukherma
starring Anthony Bajon, Christine Gautier, Ludovic Torrent, Guillaume Mattera, Jean-Michel Ricart, Alain Boitel, Noémie Lvovsky
written by Ludovic Boukherma, Zoran Boukherma, music by Amaury Chabauty
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Teddy (Anthony Bajon) is a young troublemaker in a French small town,
but not really a bad guy, just someone who feels misunderstood - and
basically he is misunderstood because his foster father (Ludovic Torrent)
is slighty mentally challenged and taken for the village idiot. But he's a
good boyfriend to high school student Rebecca (Christine Gautier) and
plans a future with her, and at the massage parlor he works at he does at
least an acceptable job, even though his boss Ghislaine (Noémie Lvovsky)
doesn't make his life easy on one hand, and repeatedly tries to seduce him
on the other. Then one day, in the woods, he's bitten for something,
probably a wolf spotted in the area, and things change for him, he grows
hair on his tongue, at night he often finds himself sleeping outside
without him knowing how he got there, and what's worse, he often finds
scratches and/or traces of blood on his body - but that said, usually
after such episodes he feels great. Then one day, Ghislaine is found
brutally murdered, and since he was last seen with her, he's the logical
suspect. The next day, Rebecca breaks up with him, and what's worse, he
spots her being intimate with her childhood friend Benjamin (Guillaume
Mattera). But that night's full moon, and Teddy knows Rebecca and Benjamin
will go to their school's bingo night later on, so he follows them - and
turns into a wolf when bingo's in full swing, with the expected bloody
results ... A very interesting take on the werewolf genre, as
this movie doesn't care so much about the creature of the creature feature
- so much so that the werewolf is never shown in full - but about the
psychology behind it and also the society it's placed in ... which
actually sounds much too brain-heavy to aptly describe the film as it's
actually wickedly funny without being moronic, and has a heart to it as
well, as despite all his fallability, the titular Teddy's actually a very
relatable character going through entirely relatable issues - with
lycanthropy of course poured on top of everything else. And thanks to a
subtle direction and a competent cast, this has turned out to be a rather
unusual but very entertaining genre film.
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