Oddly enough, this works. You'll believe that a young man and a wolf can become the best of pals through adversity. Lots of adversity.
Adding up like a cross between The Revenant and a polar-esque episode of The Littlest Hobo, this film owes little to reality and a lot to excellent visuals. And it even has its own language, which shouldn't be a problem to anyone other than the hardcore hater of subtitled cinema.
Set in Europe some 20,000 years ago, Alpha opens with a tribe of folk out on a bison-hunting trip. The sensitive Keda (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is the son of Tau (Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson), the leader of his people, and has the weight of expectation bearing heavily on his shoulders.
During the hunt, Keda hesitates when the charging bison leave him exposed, and he is chucked off a cliff, ending up a bloody mess on a ledge, heavily wounded and unable to be rescued. His people reluctantly leave him to die.
Thanks to a rather fortuitous happening, Keda escapes the ledge but is unable to do much as he's sustained a broken leg. This attracts wolves, but Keda wards them off, leaving one wolf in a bad way.
Instead of finishing off the wild beast, Keda nurses the wolf, and they gradually develop a relationship as he attempts to return to his people, despite the constant threat of severe weather and other perils.
Despite its up-to-the-minute CGI, there's an old school Disney feel to the film, which helps to subdue any cynicism the viewer might have towards a clearly preposterous storyline. You'd have to be made of stone not to be rooting for them as Keda and his canine pal risk life and limb for each other.
