Producer:  Adam Lee, Kelsey Taylor, Ricky Fosheim and Zach Golden   Director: Kelsey Taylor   Screenplay: Kelsey Taylor   Cast: Maddison Brown, Ivan Martin, Kaitlin Doubleday, Michael Esper, David Knell, Annika Cowles, Julie Knell, Jessica Catalano, Grant Joy and Dana Millican   Distributor: Bright Iris Film  

Grade: B

In her debut feature writer-director Kelsey Taylor addresses a common subject in contemporary drama—overcoming trauma.  But while doubling down on it, portraying two sufferers who help one another, she handles the issue cleverly, in the form of a tale inspired by the Little Red Riding Hood story, and secures strong performances from her cast.  “To Kill a Wolf” is a compelling, imaginative and becomingly modest treatment of a topic that’s quite familiar in contemporary fiction but is given welcome freshness here. 

The plot unfolds in a series of interlocking chapters. In the first, Ivan Martin is introduced as The Woodsman (only at the end is her name revealed as Jonah), who lives a reclusive existence deep in the Oregon forest.  A big, shaggy fellow, he’s introduced lumbering his way through the brush—it’s revealed early on that he has a prosthetic foot—using a metal detector to find wolf traps that he disables; they’ve been set by a rancher (David Knell) who pays The Woodsman a monthly sum to allow his cows to forage on the property.  On the occasions that he goes into town to shop the Woodsman is treated with muted hostility by the locals; the reason behind the dislike, and his prosthesis, is withheld until later in the film.  At home his major interest is in fiddling with his hi-fi system to keep the bass as prominent as he likes and arguing with a stuffed raccoon he calls Dave (why he will eventually explain).

While searching for the traps one day the Woodsman encounters a young woman unconscious from the cold and takes her to his cabin.  She’s Dani (Maddison Brown), a seventeen-year old who after recuperating for a time explains that she’s trying to get to her grandmother’s house.  At first The Woodsman, exasperated that she’s messed with the controls on his amplifier and that she told the rancher that she’s his niece, orders her to take the bus there, but eventually he agrees to drive her, a trip of a couple hours.  When they arrive, however, they find the place deserted, and Dani admits that her grandmother, with whom she’d lived after her mother had passed away, is dead.

That leads to a flashback chapter in which Dani is preparing to leave the deceased woman’s house with her new guardians, her mother’s sister Jolene (Kaitlin Doubleday) and her psychologist husband Carey (Michael Esper).  The evening they spend before departing is uncomfortable: Jolene rants about her mother having been severe and uncaring, and while Carey tries to smooth things over, he also shows Dani keepsakes her mother had left behind that Jolene intended to trash.  He expresses an almost clinical concern for the girl, who looks upon him as a mentor of sorts and asks him to critique essays she’s written, presumably as school exercises.

That leads the film back to its initial chapter, and to revelations by both The Woodsman and Dani about the traumatic episodes they’ve experienced, his simply told to his guest and hers, involving a modern breed of human wolf, dramatized in flashback.  In each case a degree of closure is achieved, but Taylor is no wide-eyed optimist: both The Woodsman and Dani remain psychologically damaged, but are now able to reach out to each other for understanding and support.

This description avoids revealing most of the particulars behind the characters’ turmoil to allow the surprises Kelsey’s built into her script to register; suffice it to say they carry a dramatic punch.  But it wouldn’t be as strong if it weren’t for the nuanced performances of Martin and Brown, who play off skillfully against one another as The Woodsman and Dani achieve a degree of trust neither has felt before.  Doubleday and Esper offer expert support, etching their characters in brief but effective strokes.  All benefit from the work of production designer Juliana Collins and cinematographer Adam Lee, who create a dark, claustrophobic mood not just in the interiors but even in the outdoor scenes of the Oregon woods; Lee’s emphatic use of close-ups adds appreciably to the chilly, oppressive atmosphere, as also do the ominous score by Sara Barone and Forest Christenson and Dawson Taylor’s lapidary editing.

In its original form the Red Riding Hood fable is exceptionally grim.  “To Kill a Wolf” is more hopeful, but the allusions to it help to make this modern variant a potent psychological study.