ANIMALS
****
Director: Sophie Hyde
Screenwriter: Emma Jane Unsworth, based on her eponymous novel.
Principal cast:
Holliday Grainger
Alia Shawkat
Fra Fee
Dermot Murphy
Amy Molloy
Olwen Fouéré
Country: Australia/Ireland
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 109 mins.
Australian release date: 12 September 2019
Previewed at: Sony Pictures theatrette, Sydney, on 8 August 2019.
Originally set in Manchester but relocated to Dublin for the film, Animals is an adaptation of Emma Jane Unsworth’s 2014 eponymous novel and it’s a knockout. An Australian and Irish co-pro, it focuses on the close, 10-year friendship between two millennial women who love to drink (a lot) and party to the max and what happens to that connection when one of them gets serious about a guy. The script by Unsworth herself, is talky, robust and tough and, above all, exudes the honesty and familiarity of a relationship based on shared experiences and philosophies, until the day when one of the friends begins to question the validity of their choices. There’s a strong ring of truth to this story and one can’t help but wonder if Unsworth was drawing on her own experiences when she penned it. The dialogue sizzles, as do the two leads, and it’s expertly directed by Australia’s Sophie Hyde, her sophomore feature after the ground-breaking 52 Tuesdays in 2013.
Thirty-something Laura (Holliday Grainger) works in a cafe and wants to be a writer. She’s constantly taking notes and jotting down ideas and phrases and although she’s struggling to make a start on her novel she refuses to give up, convinced it’s her calling. Her flatmate is a sardonic American, Tyler (Alia Shawkat), who lives life through a haze of drugs and alcohol and seems to be independently wealthy or, at least, doesn’t have to worry about working. They hang out together and share a loving, platonic bond of amity that’s fuelled by booze and recreational drugs, especially when they’re out clubbing. Laura’s sister, Jean (Amy Molloy) has settled down and tells the pair that, “Sooner or later, the party has to end.” When they ask “Why?”, she responds by saying, “Because you get left behind and become a tragedy,” but the two gal-pals won’t hear a word of her advice. Things change though when Laura meets concert pianist Jim (Fra Fee) and starts to feel serious about him, so her time is not as free and her affections not so centred on Tyler. Worse, when Jim gives up alcohol to concentrate on his career, it impinges on the girls’ hedonistic lifestyle even more. Enter louche poet, Marty (Dermot Murphy), who’s somewhat wilder in nature than Jim, and Laura’s whole life is thrown into disarray. Soon the girls find themselves basically taking out their anxieties and confused feelings on each other and Laura begins to feel like a spider in Tyler’s web - the flat is still home but she’s trapped in it. She’s caught in the classic dilemma that states, “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change”, as a character in Tomasi di Lampedusa’s great novel The Leopard famously put it.
Unsworth’s screenplay captures the essence of friendship and the betrayals that often go with it. It also reflects on how people are affected by change - there are those that run with it and those who simply won’t, or can’t. Both Holliday and Shawkat are perfectly cast as two women who are totally at ease in each other’s company although they come from very different social and cultural backgrounds. Even their physical appearances are polar opposites. Tyler acts tougher on the surface but, dig deeper, and she is perhaps the more vulnerable of the two, whereas Laura seems more pragmatic. This, of course, could also be due to the fact that the latter is on home turf while Tyler is an outsider, albeit a long-term one. All of these things are conveyed superbly by Holliday and Shawkat, who both deserve awards for their performances. They’re fantastic.
Animals is highly entertaining and a perfect film for an audience interested in human behaviour and how we humans relate to, and depend on, one another. It’s been described by one critic as Withnail And I for girls, and it’s quite an apt description because it examines the (sometimes bad) behaviour of modern-day women. Like that film, it’s bittersweet, both heart-warming and heart-breaking, and will probably have you racing to the pub for a drink afterwards.
Screenwriter: Emma Jane Unsworth, based on her eponymous novel.
Principal cast:
Holliday Grainger
Alia Shawkat
Fra Fee
Dermot Murphy
Amy Molloy
Olwen Fouéré
Country: Australia/Ireland
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 109 mins.
Australian release date: 12 September 2019
Previewed at: Sony Pictures theatrette, Sydney, on 8 August 2019.
Originally set in Manchester but relocated to Dublin for the film, Animals is an adaptation of Emma Jane Unsworth’s 2014 eponymous novel and it’s a knockout. An Australian and Irish co-pro, it focuses on the close, 10-year friendship between two millennial women who love to drink (a lot) and party to the max and what happens to that connection when one of them gets serious about a guy. The script by Unsworth herself, is talky, robust and tough and, above all, exudes the honesty and familiarity of a relationship based on shared experiences and philosophies, until the day when one of the friends begins to question the validity of their choices. There’s a strong ring of truth to this story and one can’t help but wonder if Unsworth was drawing on her own experiences when she penned it. The dialogue sizzles, as do the two leads, and it’s expertly directed by Australia’s Sophie Hyde, her sophomore feature after the ground-breaking 52 Tuesdays in 2013.
Thirty-something Laura (Holliday Grainger) works in a cafe and wants to be a writer. She’s constantly taking notes and jotting down ideas and phrases and although she’s struggling to make a start on her novel she refuses to give up, convinced it’s her calling. Her flatmate is a sardonic American, Tyler (Alia Shawkat), who lives life through a haze of drugs and alcohol and seems to be independently wealthy or, at least, doesn’t have to worry about working. They hang out together and share a loving, platonic bond of amity that’s fuelled by booze and recreational drugs, especially when they’re out clubbing. Laura’s sister, Jean (Amy Molloy) has settled down and tells the pair that, “Sooner or later, the party has to end.” When they ask “Why?”, she responds by saying, “Because you get left behind and become a tragedy,” but the two gal-pals won’t hear a word of her advice. Things change though when Laura meets concert pianist Jim (Fra Fee) and starts to feel serious about him, so her time is not as free and her affections not so centred on Tyler. Worse, when Jim gives up alcohol to concentrate on his career, it impinges on the girls’ hedonistic lifestyle even more. Enter louche poet, Marty (Dermot Murphy), who’s somewhat wilder in nature than Jim, and Laura’s whole life is thrown into disarray. Soon the girls find themselves basically taking out their anxieties and confused feelings on each other and Laura begins to feel like a spider in Tyler’s web - the flat is still home but she’s trapped in it. She’s caught in the classic dilemma that states, “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change”, as a character in Tomasi di Lampedusa’s great novel The Leopard famously put it.
Unsworth’s screenplay captures the essence of friendship and the betrayals that often go with it. It also reflects on how people are affected by change - there are those that run with it and those who simply won’t, or can’t. Both Holliday and Shawkat are perfectly cast as two women who are totally at ease in each other’s company although they come from very different social and cultural backgrounds. Even their physical appearances are polar opposites. Tyler acts tougher on the surface but, dig deeper, and she is perhaps the more vulnerable of the two, whereas Laura seems more pragmatic. This, of course, could also be due to the fact that the latter is on home turf while Tyler is an outsider, albeit a long-term one. All of these things are conveyed superbly by Holliday and Shawkat, who both deserve awards for their performances. They’re fantastic.
Animals is highly entertaining and a perfect film for an audience interested in human behaviour and how we humans relate to, and depend on, one another. It’s been described by one critic as Withnail And I for girls, and it’s quite an apt description because it examines the (sometimes bad) behaviour of modern-day women. Like that film, it’s bittersweet, both heart-warming and heart-breaking, and will probably have you racing to the pub for a drink afterwards.