THERE’S SOMETHING SCARY ABOUT MARY
Two lonely souls fall in love in quirky romantic drama Wolf Like Me – but one of them is carrying a very dark secret...
Gary reckons he’s struck lucky when he meets Mary — she’s kind, beautiful and has the priceless ability to calm his anxious young daughter Emma. And as the two Americans chink glasses in a dimly lit bar in downtown Adelaide, Australia, where they now live, the lonely widower is starting to fall in love. But there’s a problem — a very large one.
Mary, played by Isla Fisher in Amazon’s quirky new romantic drama Wolf Like Me, is hiding an extraordinary secret. She thinks if she reveals it, Gary will probably head for the hills with Emma. But by keeping it under wraps, she is putting them in extreme danger.
‘It’s a dilemma for Mary,’ says Isla. ‘She’s very fond of Gary, thinks there’s something special about Emma and wants to spend her time with them. But she knows this is potentially disastrous because of her secret.’
The trio first meet after their cars collide. Nobody is badly hurt — the only real damage is to the Solar System model Emma has made for a school project. And even the 11-year-old’s expected anxiety attack fails to materialise. ‘Gary scrambles to find Emma’s toy wolf to comfort her but it’s not required,’ says Josh Gad, famous for voicing snowman Olaf in Disney’s Frozen, who plays Gary. ‘Remarkably, Mary already has his daughter calm and smiling.’
Later, Mary visits Gary and Emma at their home. She has a gift for the child, a Carl Sagan scifi novel, and an apology. ‘I’m sorry for wrecking your universe,’ she smiles, as she gives her the book.
The meeting goes well until Mary suddenly ups and leaves. She does the same thing during a long, lingering lunch with Gary a day later. Having lost track of time, and realising that daylight is fading, she runs several miles back to her home, locking herself in a heavily fortified room.
Creator Abe Forsythe partly based the six-part series on his experiences of life as a single parent. ‘It’s about meeting somebody you know is your soulmate but who has the most extraordinary piece of baggage,’ he says. ‘You know they’d be a positive influence on you and your child’s life, but to what extent do you accept their baggage and find a way of dealing with it? We discover how Gary faces up to the truth about Mary, and his reaction to it, as the series unfolds.’
Isla, the former Home And Away star who’s married to Sacha Baron Cohen, adds, ‘I think viewers will be hoping the couple can overcome the hurdles in their way because they’re so well suited. Both have lost someone they love deeply and both feel responsible for the pain they’ve caused others. They’re also desperately lonely and — as Americans living in Australia — they feel a long way from home. The couple deserve some lasting happiness!
All episodes of Wolf Like Me are available from Friday on Prime Video.