‘The Wolf, the Fox, and the Leopard’ (TRIBECA Review) – Jessica Reynolds shines in David Verbeek’s triumphant tale of humanity, emotions, and moral reckoning

TRIBECA FESTIVAL is one of the film festivals where viewers get to see some of the brightest minds in the industry come forward with their projects, and this year was no exception. However, if there’s one movie that stood out for me and many others was David Verbeek’s The Wolf, the Fox, and the Leopard starring Jessica Reynolds in the leading role. There are not many movies that can defy categorization and dare the audience to let go of expectations; this one is exactly like that.

The film chronicles the journey of a girl (played by Jessica Reynolds) who lives in the deep forests and has been raised by wolves. Yes, literal wolves. She acts like them, walks like them, and eats like them. Her early life has been untouched by humanity until she comes in contact with a guy named Dylan (played by Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen). Dylan has been lost in the forest and comes face-to-face with a pack of wolves and loses his life. When a search party goes deep in the forest, they come in contact with the feral girl, and they bring him to a secret lab so they can study her. However, things turn upside down when two of the people working in the secret lab take her to a new location and force her to live on an oil rig during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The couple (played by Marie Jung and Nicholas Pinnock) treat her like a daughter and tell her that the other side of the world has been poisoned. However, as the girl gets to know about the couple’s motives, she realizes that her free soul was being captured and forced to do what she never wanted to.

(Image Courtesy: Tribeca)

No familiar tropes, Verbeek leans into the grey area of humanity

One of the strongest aspects of the film is that Verbeek avoids the familiar coming-of-age tropes and instead leans into ambiguity, moral dissonance, and the uncanny. The Wolf, the Fox, and the Leopard is a bildungsroman for the Anthropocene, where growth isn’t about fitting into society but navigating its collapse. The girl, now caught between two worlds – one primal and pure, the other deeply compromised – must reckon with what it means to be human, to have a future, and to make choices in a world where right and wrong are no longer clear. The screenplay is deeply layered and refuses to spoon-feed the audience. Moral quandaries are left unresolved, symbolism is layered, and character motivations are often contradictory. But that’s precisely what makes the film such a compelling experience.

Verbeek trusts the viewer to wrestle with the same questions his protagonist faces: Can humanity truly coexist with nature? Is survival enough? And what happens when the systems we build to protect ourselves become just another form of control? Verbeek’s direction is fearless, and the cinematography is captivating. Every frame serves the film’s larger meditation on the clash between nature and civilization.

Jessica Reynolds shines, while Marie Jung is a force to be reckoned with

Jessica Reynolds delivers a career-defining performance as the feral girl who is simply named “The One.”Her transformation—from a creature of instinct to someone wrestling with complex moral dilemmas—is rendered with incredible nuance. Without relying heavily on dialogue, Reynolds conveys entire internal worlds through her body language, her gaze, and the way she gradually loses and regains agency. It is one of the most emotionally rich and physically demanding performances of the year, and she carries the film with grace and ferocity. Verbeek, in an interview with COASTAL HOUSE MEDIA, noted that he wouldn’t have made The Wolf, the Fox, and the Leopard if he were unable to find the perfect actor to play the feral girl. When he chose Reynolds, she seemed the perfect choice, and with her performance, she makes it clear that she indeed was the perfect one for the role.

(Image Courtesy: Tribeca)

Meanwhile, Marie Jung and Nicholas Pinnock are the ideological forces guiding (or perhaps manipulating) her transformation, especially Jung. She is a force to be reckoned with in every scene that she is in. Their characters are not villains, nor are they saviors. Instead, Verbeek paints them as deeply flawed visionaries; characters who see the end of the world coming and want to do right, even as their actions veer into ethically murky territory.

Is The Wolf, the Fox, and the Leopard worth watching?

All in all, The Wolf, the Fox, and the Leopard is a breathtaking tale of what it feels like to be a human in today’s world. It is a daring mixture of fairytale, sci-fi, and moral reckoning. Verbeek’s storytelling is fearless and unapologetically layered. Every turn feels perfectly placed and forces viewers to change their minds. Just when we think we understand what’s happening, the narrative changes everything, and it all works out for the best. It’s emotionally resonant, philosophically daring, and visually unforgettable. It’s rare to find a film that dares to be this strange, this tender, and this profound all at once.

ONE OF THE BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR!

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