Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Wildcat’ on Amazon Prime Video, an Affecting Documentary About a Traumatized Man Fostering an Orphaned Ocelot

Wildcat (now on Amazon Prime Video) is a documentary contrasting adorable wild Amazonian animals with one man’s mental health struggles. The former, specifically cute-as-the-dickens orphan ocelot kittens in need of a leg up, may be as necessary to the health of the latter, a traumatized military veteran seeking escape and healing. Directors Trevor Frost and Melissa Lesh capture the intensely loving, but necessarily brief relationship between Harry the human and Keanu the ocelot, for a classic who’s-rescuing-whom man-meets-animal story.

WILDCAT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: “We’re wild animals, me and you. We’re wild.” Harry sees a lot of himself in the ocelot he’s raising in the Peruvian Amazon. The cat was orphaned and scooped up by loggers likely to sell it on the black market before a conservationist group swept in to rescue it; now, it needs fostering for 18 months before it can be released into the jungle to fend for itself. Seven years previous, the British-born Harry was an 18-year-old soldier in Afghanistan before he was discharged with post-traumatic stress disorder and burn scars on his arms; he attempted suicide before deciding he needed to get away from everything, and settled in the jungle. The parallel between man and cat is obvious – both need to ready themselves for the freedoms of their respective worlds.

Harry often films himself as he takes the ocelot for late-night “walks” through the jungle, teaching the not-a-kitten-but-not-yet-a-cat how to hunt rodents and small caimans. Frost and Lesh provide many of the nuts and bolts of the documentary, mixing in third-person footage and filling some narrative holes. Harry’s cat-rehab project is overseen by Samantha, a graduate student who runs the Hoja Nueva nonprofit, dedicated to rehabbing animals and preserving rainforest acreage. We eventually learn that their partnership is also romantic. Harry talks about his family back in England, especially his great affection for his 13-year-old brother; they’ll brave the miles and the dense, treacherous jungle to visit. Samantha must jet back to Seattle more often than she’d like to pursue her studies and raise funds for Hoja Nueva; she opens up about her late father, whose alcoholism rendered him harsh and abusive at night, but tender and loving the next morning.

We get an intense portrait of the connection between man and animal as Harry does the lion’s share of “mothering” of an ocelot he and Samantha affectionately named Keanu. (Disappointingly, the filmmakers never ask the couple if they’re Point Breakers, John Wickers or My Own Private Idahoers.) To our untrained eye, Harry seems well-suited to raising ocelot kittens, balancing the tender nurturing and tough love a wild, but dependent cat like Keanu needs. Not that it’s easy – a big, territorial male prowls nearby; a spider bite sickens Keanu for a night; a hard lesson is learned when the cat attacks a caiman that’s a little too big and a lot too quick. In the final months before Keanu’s release, Harry frets and worries during the cat’s first night alone in the jungle, outside its enclosure. The bond inevitably must be severed, and Harry, trying to drive the cat away, growls and lashes out violently. The common thread among all these incidents: Is Harry’s psychological well-being too intrinsically tied to the cat’s health and progress? Harry frequently slips into deep, dark depression, and he still has the capacity for self-harm. It greatly stresses his relationship with Samantha. “I’m in the most beautiful place in the world,” Harry laments, “and I can’t f—in’ be happy.”

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Wildcat draws a tight parallel with 2021 Oscar-winning doc My Octopus Teacher, in which a wildlife filmmaker chronicled the life of an octopus as a means of managing his depression.

Performance Worth Watching: Not to brush aside the very real and empathetic pain of the humans in the picture, but one crucial component gives the heavy subject matter necessary moments of levity: Frequent footage of a romping and nipping ocelot kitten.

Memorable Dialogue: Harry feels the frustration of every parent when he begs Keanu, “Just. Eat. Your rodent!”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: The more Harry and Keanu’s story progresses, the more fragile it becomes. Harry believes the only way to alleviate the pain of his anxiety attacks is by cutting himself. We see surprisingly intimate footage of Harry and Samantha vehemently arguing as their relationship seems to be reaching its final throes. She isn’t sure if she should help him or leave him, and she admits her rocky relationship with her father muddies her decision. Harry knows he has no choice but to say goodbye forever to Keanu, the thing he loves the most, because it’s best for the cat. And he’ll be letting Keanu run free in one of the world’s most brutal natural environments. There are no guarantees for either man or cat.

Wisely, Frost and Lesh step back and let their film raise questions without judgment. Is Harry’s situation and behavior a net negative, or are we witnessing the pains of progress? (It’s sometimes comforting to know that Harry wasn’t always alone in the jungle – someone has to be present to run the camera, although the filmmakers never directly insert themselves into the narrative.) Either way, the film captures the messy truth about Harry – and maybe mental health in general – that may be dissatisfying for anyone seeking a documentary with a tidy conclusion, but is nonetheless honest and affecting. Wildcat is about the fickle nature of happiness, and that’s where the wild-animal metaphor ultimately falls apart – happiness comes and goes, but unlike a wily ocelot, it will return.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Although Wildcat asserts that there are no easy solutions to Harry’s problems, it’s nonetheless a memorably and by-turns raw and beautiful portrait of a man and his capacity to love a cat that desperately needs it.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.