Radical Wolfe Just Isn’t As Radical As Its Subject

Read Time:3 Minute, 28 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
Radical Wolfe
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Genre: Documentary
Year Released: 2023
Runtime: 1h 16m
Director(s): Richard Dewey
Where To Watch: opens in select theaters September 15, 2023

FILMMAKER ON FILM REVIEW: RADICAL WOLFE is a documentary about the life and work of the eccentric, conservative, but experimental writer Tom Wolfe. At the outset, I had high hopes that director Richard Dewey would attempt to infuse his documentary with some of Wolfe’s unique stream-of-consciousness style of storytelling into the film, but sadly, it wasn’t meant to be. The film serves as an introduction to the iconic writer for the uninformed and a celebration for the writer’s fans.

Tom Wolfe is a writer who rose to stardom in the 1960s and 1970s through his stream-of-consciousness musings about subculture and popular trends. He seemed to have his proverbial finger on the country’s pulse, knowing what to write about and when to write it for decades. He found his writing style accidentally early in his career when he just sent stream-of-consciousness notes to a story editor, hoping the editor would find the story in the edits. The editor instead just sent the story to publish as it was written, and so began a new era of journalism simply called “the new journalism.” Wolfe would often be imitated, but no other writer would be able to successfully embrace this messy but weirdly poetic style of writing the way Wolfe did. It worked for him because he wasn’t trying to write in a style; he was just vomiting his thoughts and feelings onto the page and publishing it.

The film keeps the proceedings very surface-y and glosses over the blemishes in Wolfe’s life and career. The focus on the good things and backburning of any less than positive elements makes the film feel more like a promo reel than a real documentary film. That said, there’s a lot to learn here for the uninformed, and the best moments of the film are when John Hamm read Wolfe’s words. These sequences reminded me of the Harlan Ellison documentary DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH. That film is far superior to this one, but again, the best parts of that film come when Ellison’s words are read. Wolfe’s conservatism was always at the center of his writings, but late in his career, he veered fully into more preachy works, and these writings are barely mentioned in the film.

RADICAL WOLFE is a quick, fluffy watch but lacks any real depth or well-rounded observations about the man and his work. This is certainly a fun watch for informed fans, but I kept waiting for the real documentary to begin, and it just didn’t. The entire film is based on a similarly fluffy magazine article, so maybe we should not have expected more. This is definitely a case of a fan making a movie about his hero, a very common problem in modern documentaries. Our heroes need to be broken down in documentary and shown to be real people. They’re already our heroes; we don’t need a promo film to further elevate them.

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[photo courtesy of KINO LORBER]

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