For my money, no actress is better suited to capturing the paranoia and desperation necessary for great psychological thrillers than Naomi Watts. So it’s to our benefit that she’s about to be seen in one that has already earned a great deal of acclaim since premiering at Sundance earlier this year. The Wolf Hour finds Watts stuck in a stuffy apartment as violence rages during the sweltering Summer of Sam in 1977 New York City.
It’s July 1977, and New York City is awash with escalating violence. A citywide blackout is triggering fires, looting, and countless arrests, and the Son of Sam murders are riddling the city with panic. June, once a celebrated counterculture figure, attempts to retreat from the chaos by shutting herself inside the yellowed walls of her grandmother’s South Bronx apartment. But her doorbell is ringing incessantly, the heat is unbearable, and creeping paranoia and fear are taking hold. Visitors, some invited, some unsolicited, arrive one by one, and June must determine whom she can trust and whether she can find a path back to her former self.
The film is written and directed by Alistair Banks Griffin, and co-stars Kelvin Harrison Jr., Watts’ co-star in the acclaimed thriller Luce. Perhaps these two should make more movies together?
The Wolf Hour opens on December 6th.
