Magical realism meets pre-post-apocalyptic sagas in The Animal Kingdom (now streaming on Hulu), a strange French genre-bender about the Great Manimal Problem. Those are my words, not the movieâs â director and co-writer Thomas Cailley leaves the hows and whys vague and hones in on humanityâs (perhaps futile) attempt to continue business-as-usual in the face of an epidemic where human folks are mutating into bird persons, lizardies, manateemen and other assorted bizarre hybrid creatures. The film is an odd blend of tones and styles, and it comes off a bit like an arthouse X-Men. This is tricky, ambitious material, and Iâm not sure it entirely âworks,â but does that mean itâs not worth a watch? Letâs find out.
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Francois (Romain Duris) and his teenage son Emile (Paul Kircher) sit in a traffic jam caused not by an accident or road construction, but a birdman. Seriously: This guy has talons instead of toes and wings where his arms used to be and head bandages that make him look like he just had beak-removal surgery. We get a pretty good look at the guy, and itâs hard to tell if heâs tortured by the predicament or amidst the painful process of being set free from the hell of humanity. Anyway, traffic finally moves so Francois and Emile can visit their wife-slash-mother Lana in a facility where non-escaped human-slash-beasts are being cared for, or studied, or medically treated, or, perhaps, imprisoned to the point where they may soon feel the need to rebel and break free? Again, hard to tell, but we get a good, long look into Lanaâs simian-like eyes, surrounded by fur, and sense a pretty intense identity struggle going on somewhere in there. We also get a good look at Emileâs face, at the scar on his temple, as he stands next to a wall marred by deep claw marks, and get the gist: Heâs been through some shit.
But Emile and Francois seem to be doing mostly OK, it seems. They keep on keeping on, relocating to a temporary camping cabana in a rural locale after Lana is transported to a new facility for the creatures, or, if youâre participating in human societyâs tendency to slap derisive labels on things they donât like or understand, âcritters.â Emile attends a new school, where a Draco Malfoyish creep considers the animal-folk freaks, and other kids wonder if humanity shouldnât try to coexist with the creature. Emile makes friends with Nina (Billie Blain), who we learn is a vegetarian, suggesting she carries a profound respect for animals, which is a good thing, since her romantic interest is starting to act a little funny in gym class â you know, being able to single-handedly drag four kids to the ground in a tug-of-war.
Like mother, like son, then? NO SPOILERS, man, but I will say Emileâs hair growth is more than a little excessive for the usual bounds of puberty, and heâs experiencing some troublesome issues with his teeth and fingernails, too. Is this funny? I canât quite tell, but I think so, yes. Meanwhile, weâre privy to some father-son bonding sequences after a transport truck crashes and the manimals inside escape to the woods, Lana included. Francois is very weird about this, deciding that hanging clothing that smells like him and Emile, or driving through the forest at night screaming Lanaâs name and blasting her favorite song, will lure her back. What his expectations are if should return, I donât know, but it gets you thinking about troublesome things like the relationship between humans and their pets and/or, ulp, bestiality. Francois befriends a local cop, Julia (Adele Exarchopoulos), whoâs either sympathetic to his cause or wants to smooch his face, Iâm not sure which, but one thing Iâm sure of is, Exarchopoulos deserves a better-written role. And things come to a head as military trucks roll in to do whatever it is theyâll do to the escaped creatures â surely the manimals wonât be greeted with hugs and snacks â and Emile tries to keep his transformation a secret. Here I spin the Fisher Price See ânâ Say to the fox, who says, CHAOS REIGNS.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: MAGICAL REALISM also reigns around here, so think Beasts of the Southern Wild cross-bred with a Planet of the Apes thatâs set between Rise of and Dawn of, with an inevitable nod to Birdman, some Shyamalanesque sleight-of-hand horror, weird American Werewolf in London-inspired comedy and bits of icky please-cut-away-from-the-oozing-wound-before-he-LICKS-it body blecch a la David Cronenberg.
Performance Worth Watching: Some of the supporting cast gets to do the full slither or squawkaroo as they lose their humanity, which is a little, you know, goofy. Kircherâs Teen Wolfisms are less so; he tugs on the reins a bit, finding the subtle comedy in the margins of human and beast as he undergoes his transformation.
Memorable Dialogue: Emile gets hung up on the details when maybe he should be freaking out about the bigger picture: âWorst of all is the fur. Wolf fur is bristly. It itches.â
Sex and Skin: None, he said, breathing a sigh of disappointment, since the movie doesnât make us really uncomfortable by going there.
Our Take: The Animal Kingdom nurtures a nether-tone, existing somewhere among horror, comedy, sci-fi and thriller, with a vagueness thatâs sometimes tantalizing, sometimes frustrating. Cailley finds a bit of thematic traction in Francois and Emileâs father-son dynamic as they try to deal with a life where their mother/wife isnât dead but is far from her old self, and thatâs the filmâs strongest component â theyâre haphazard and reckless in their method of finding Lana, but theyâre also hopeful, as if fully recognizing how surreal and ridiculous the situation is, and having fun in the face of significant personal and societal change. Part of the drama hinges on Francois finding out about Emileâs condition, and how heâll react to it; part of it hinges on Emileâs self-discovery and wriggly psychology â what can and canât he control about his behavior? â as well as his budding buddyship with the birdman, who calls himself Fix and is played with weird gusto by Tom Mercier.
One senses Cailleyâs attempts to defy expectations in terms of tone, feel and plot, and some of the seams are visible â youâll admire his vision and aspirations at the same time youâll notice his calculations. And there are plenty of notable directorial flourishes here: Thoughtful cinematography, shrewd camera movements, an atmosphere of unease and a fantastical magical-realist visual M.O. that carefully balances practical effects with CGI. Where the film fails to adhere is in finding a central metaphor, which wavers among coming-of-age tropes and undercooked inferences about racial prejudice, human nature and the politics of extreme change. I never felt fully immersed in the strange not-quite-our-world reality Cailley creates, but I was nevertheless fascinated by what occurred within it.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Magical realism can be either profound or deeply silly, and The Animal Kingdom, for better or worse, splits the difference. It doesnât come together as a fully formed concept â it sort of feels like an extended pilot for a multi-arc TV series â but it stirs enough intrigue to warrant a recommendation.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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