Animal Kingdom (2010)
Summary
Genre: Crime, DramaGoodies:
+ Interesting characters and family dynamics, +Baddies:
- Drab throughout most of the film, -Tells the story of seventeen year-old J (Josh) as he navigates his survival amongst an explosive criminal family and the detective who thinks he can save him.
Animal Kingdom had a very still feeling to it, by that I mean it didn’t get overly dramatic and didn’t lull too much. It’s one of those films that feel like it’s actually happening, which sometimes is a good thing, but it always felt very unexpressive in some parts as well. Overall, I liked the film, but what I liked mored was J as a character and using Animal Kingdom as a character study. If I were to pick a theme about the film it would be “What happens to someone when they are thrown into situations beyond their control” and piggy backing on “shit happens”. Josh lives a pretty “do as I am told” lifestyle, and when he goes to live with his crooked family, he doesn’t know how to act between the good side and bad side of the law, and ultimately finds himself at the end (or at least starts making decisions for himself). The grandmother in the film also has a very interesting dynamic in the family. She balances the world between ‘mob mother’ and ‘i’m just here’, in the end she shows who she truly is, and J seemingly doesn’t connect all the pieces (but no one would, which makes the film more realistic). So, if I had to choose a favorite aspect of the film, characters would def. be up there. The story itself wasn’t overly compelling to me as much as the decisions that the characters were making. I would recommend seeing it. Sometimes I feel pretty hit or miss with Australian films, but this one was midrange – it had it’s highs and lows. I didn’t really start getting invested until about halfway through the film, and then really started liking it at the end, but the beginning was slow.
