[Film Review] Teddy (2020)

Teddy, a young social misfit in a rural French village, is scratched by an unknown beast and slowly undergoes horrifying changes. 

There is a lot to love about Teddy. It’s visually sumptuous, all vibrant sunshine and verdant fields, contrasted with Teddy’s heavy metal aesthetic and the dark nights in which the beast prowls through the village. It is a fun and engaging film, entertaining but also heartfelt and it has a lot to say about the nature of being an outsider, of social class and the pain of the transition into adulthood. Teddy is an outcast, working in a beauty salon and trying to be charming. He doesn’t fit with his girlfriend’s middle class peers, and feels that difference painfully. He wants to be respected but doesn’t know how to give it, or to get it in return. He perches on the ledge of adulthood and fears the jump. 

There are moments of significance that underscore this rite of passage. When the heartbroken Teddy sees a group of men emerging from the woods, hunting the wolf that has been slaying local sheep, he watches, removed from them, marked by his difference. This scene acts as a metaphor for the death of Teddy’s hopes for his future, his naivete, and is a stark reminder that adults will kill the wildness in you if you let them. This is echoed later in Teddy’s final act of emancipation when, through his physical transformation, he sheds his Teddy Trailer Trash persona and becomes the master of his destiny. His final, thrilling rampage is a wilful destruction of the stifling small town values, the gossipy mean spirits that have taunted his family.

However, throughout Teddy’s changes, his growing blood lust and his eventual descent into violence, it is impossible not to feel empathy for him. His love for his girlfriend, the tenderness he shows his aunt and his desire to rise above the perceptions others have of him, all combine to make him a vulnerable, and therefore sympathetic, character. His confusion about the changes he endures feels palpably familiar to all of us who suffered through our early twenties, although this manifests in presumably much more hair and eating of raw flesh in Teddy’s case. 

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One of my favourite things about werewolf movies is the transformation. From the stop animation hair and teeth of old, to the visceral, painful transformation in An American Werewolf in London (as well as the unforgettable genital transformation in Wolfcop), that moment of change, of the body shifting into literal best mode is thrilling to me. However, the cinematic move towards more palatable werewolves in recent years (Twilight anyone?) has taken the teeth out of it.

The shift towards a romantic, painless alteration into a graceful predator that runs freely through the wilderness has, frankly, ruined the fun. I want the teeth and the fur, I want the claws sprouting out of fingertips, the ripping of skin, the yellowing of eyes. In this regard, Teddy doesn’t disappoint. There is a delicious body horror element to Teddy’s gradual transformation, hair where it shouldn’t be (and not in the stereotypical places), waking up blood spattered and naked in the town square and the final, bloody transformation that is masterfully handled. Through sparing practical effects, we get the drama of the change, without the often clunky, and dated, CGI effect. This is a personal preference of mine, as a lover of practical effects, but it also adds to the overall visual appeal of the film. 

Teddy should be inducted into the teen wolf Hall of Fame alongside Ginger Snaps in my opinion. It displays the evocative use of bodily transformation, to externalise the internal conflict of that often painful shift from adolescence to adulthood. Teddy is a boy playing at being a man, desperate to be taken seriously. Through his physical transformation he takes back the power he lacks, using claws and teeth to stake his claim on manhood. And at the end, when the villagers are ready with their pitchforks, he goes back to a family that will take care of him, despite their perceived shortcomings by the rest of the town. A family willing to protect him, whatever the cost. With that, Teddy makes a clear statement about who the monsters really are.

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