Teddy

Imagine Quentin Dupieux filming a remake of It Follows produced by A24 in the charming french countryside. It's just wonderful. This is not a horror movie. It's a comedy and it's actually funny. I've read people found the story weak but the real strength of this picture is found in the layered meaning of the story. The protagonist, a teenager who's just trying to be and to build is future while enjoying life and growing up, finds himself confronted to stereotyped and dreamless adulthood and friends. The metaphor used (the werewolf transformation) brilliantly shows the inadequacy and the rage felt by the hero, alone in his trouble. We once knew that same feeling we had as teenagers when puberty hit, trying to build our own identity. Just brilliant.

In rural southern France a high school drop-out is shunned by the other boys in his town, he doesn't care cause he has a girlfriend. They have a ball until he gets bitten. When he does he loses time. His uncle can tell something is up just by the smell. We go through the usual gross-out-instead-of-suspense while he watches himself change, over time instead of during the full moon only. This movie is just ok with a good ending. Teddy and even his girl don't react in believable ways, nobody does. What's worse is the story isn't interesting. It's a werewolf movie with no fear, no suspense, and no tale.

The French have produced a good number of horror movies such as Haute Tension, Raw, L'Interieur, Martyrs or Frontiers. They manage to shock and transgress horror fans whoblike myself are used to the usual Hollywood horror tropes. Sadly Teddy doesn't belong in that list of good horror movies. They try to tackle the lycanthrope theme with mundane and nonsensical results. The move has a few comedic moments and the end is probably the best part. In a rural French village, a douchy bald-headed big-eared kid with glasses and heavy metal t-shirts who for some reason doesn't get along with the authorities, somehow gets bitten by a mysterious creature in the woods. From then on not only does he start to change but his life starts falling apart too, especially with his family and equally odd blonde girlfriend. The plot sounds good but alas it is showered with silly drama, nonsensical typical French dialogues, a few gross scenes and one of the most unlikable kids in horror cinema. If you like French horror movies with a bit of weirdness, give it a shot but be warned, award-winning it ain't.

Summary

A successful look at the myth of the werewolf, in this case associated with a coming of age and a love story of a teenager in a town in the French Pyrenees, with the realism, dryness and social notes typical of French terror and a moving result.

Review

Teddy is a teenager who lives in a French town in the Pyrenees area. From the moment he is bitten by something hidden in the woods, his behavior begins to change.

Teddy hasn't finished school, he's dating a girl who's about to finish high school, he loves satanic rock, he lives with a strange uncle and he has an amazing job. Outside of all this, he is a simple and impulsive boy who lacks a social life.

The film by Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma (critic's award at the Sitges Festival 2020 and part of the official selection for the Cannes Film Festival) brings their perspective on the myth of the werewolf, framing it in a coming of age and a story of love, enhanced by notes on class, work, on medical knowledge and cultural differences, notes never underlined, but rather arise spontaneously from history; Teddy and his entourage have something of Bruno Dumont's Hors Satan.

The story develops a successful narrative crescendo, generally staying within a realistic register that includes everyday episodes (including sexual ones) that in this context take on enormous tension and others that are very simple but put the viewer to the test. The directors know how to resort to ellipses and off-screen with solvency, to which is added a certain humor that emerges from the small-town dynamics. And when it comes to solving situations, the film shows the characteristic dryness of French terror, which does not prevent them from being moving.

Anthony Bajon (absolute protagonist) composes very well a lonely Teddy who generates empathy in the viewer. And I left for the end a special mention for the remarkable soundtrack by Amaury Chabauty, which contributes opportunely and enormously to the climates created in the film.

For the most part, the performances are well done and subdued while the rising action has a decent pace. For me, I had more of an issue with the logistics of the film in terms of the body horror and the climax scene of the film. I do think it's worth a watch and the performance of the lead is laudable.