Wolf Like Me review – so bad it’s good? No, just the former

Modern dating is a minefield at the best of times, let alone when you’re 40, living in a foreign country, widowed and the single father of an emotionally difficult 11-year-old. When we meet American expat Gary (Josh Gad), he’s being dumped in an Australian restaurant by a self-described empath who claims he’s not emotionally available enough. Soon after, Gary has a chance encounter with the beautiful Mary (Isla Fisher) when their cars collide, and is stunned when she manages to soothe his daughter Emma (Ariel Donoghue) during a panic attack – something he can’t do himself. Mary seems like a dream come true, but not all is as it seems.

Directed by Abe Forsythe and produced by Jodi Matterson (Nine Perfect Strangers), Bruna Papandrea (Big Little Lies) and Steve Hutensky (The Dry), this schlocky six-part series is choppy and confused, unsure of its purpose. Mary’s true identity is flagged in the title of the show, which has all the subtlety of a Twilight film – except that Twilight could be considered “so bad it’s good”, and this is really just the former.

Mary is a kind of manic pixie dream wolf, playing the prospective stepmother of Emma’s dreams; she gives the girl a Carl Sagan novel, which Emma reads obsessively, and recommends a Queens of the Stone Age song, so Emma locks herself in a car to listen to it. The charm of Mary, for both Emma and her father, is the way in which she can cut through to some kind of emotional centre: through interacting with Mary, Emma is able to develop a new vocabulary that helps her in her therapy sessions. But does all this make Mary a good partner for Gary?

Here’s where Wolf Like Me does, perhaps, succeed a little: illustrating the addictive, push-pull nature of toxic relationships. Just as we think Gary is out for good, something pulls him back towards Mary; Mary’s constant running away act is frustrating but understandable, given her fear of intimacy and judgment. Both characters elicit some sympathy from the viewer, but neither is particularly likable. The relationship is unhealthy on both sides and borders on emotional abuse, manipulation and boundary-crossing. It’s hard to watch without thinking both characters would be better off without the other.

One early scene shows Gary ordering a cab driver to follow Mary home so he can see for himself what she’s up to. “You shouldn’t be following women like this, it’s 2021,” the driver says. This might be the show’s only real moment of self-awareness. Its depiction of women and race leaves a lot to be desired: the sole person of colour to appear in the show is an Asian woman Gary goes on a date with, who is only on the dating app to learn English.

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Wolf Like Me gets more ridiculous across the six 30-minute episodes, with Mary and Gary’s relationship developing at warp speed as their lives become more intertwined. The climax, in which Mary’s secret is finally shown on-screen, is laughably bad – the special effects and costuming leave a lot to be desired – but there’s a sweet father-daughter moment there, in which Gary finally finds a way to communicate with Emma.

Still, the plot is nonsensical. It’s hard to tell what genre Wolf Like Me wants to be. Horror? Romcom? Drama? A mix of all three? Whatever it is, it falls flat.

• Wolf Like Me premieres on 13 January on Stan (Australia) and Peacock (US).