LA Film Fest 6: Animal Kingdom

The Sundance favorite puts a fresh spin on a classic gangster tale.

By Aireka Muse
Published: June 28th, 2010 | 5:55pm

David Michod, the director of the Australian film Animal Kingdom, sits uncomfortably in his chair at the Q&A after the screening of the film. A young filmmaker in the audience asks, “What is your approach to directing?” David takes a moment and then candidly responds, “I don’t know." Liz Watts, the film’s producer, takes the microphone and kindly jumping in to explain to the group how David directs. This moment of uncertainty and hint of confusion aptly captures the film’s flaws as well as the source of its brilliance. Animal Kingdom—Michod's first feature, which he wrote and directed—is beautiful, daring, but also lacking polish when it comes to crafting fully realized characters.

The film starts with a chilling visual of our lead, Joshua “J” Cody, mesmerized by Deal or No Deal on the TV as his mother, who appears to be asleep, sits next to him. Seconds later, two paramedics enter and pronounce his mother dead from a drug overdose. Such still, poetic moments made Animal Kingdom an instant favorite at Sundance. Jay, played the by newcomer James Frecheville, is an emotionless teenage boy left to live with his estranged grandmother, Janine “Smurf” Cody (Jacki Weaver), and her three criminal sons. The Cody brothers—Andrew “Pope” (Ben Mendelsohn), Darren (Luke Ford), and Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), along with their business partner Barry “Bas” Brown (Joel Edgerton), are some of Melbourne’s most successful criminals. Their fortune takes a turn when the police unfairly murder Bas, the most levelheaded of the group. Pope, the unstable one, manipulates retaliation, and before Jay knows it, he becomes so deeply involved with the family’s misfortune that there's no way out.

At times I was stunned by Michod’s ability to create suspense, crafting a sense of danger and anxiety even in somewhat obvious and predictable moments. At one point, the boys leave an abandoned car in the middle of the road and wait for the police to arrive. I found myself biting the edge of my pen as two naïve policemen arrived to investigate the scene. Michod uses a keen sense of pacing to let the scene seethe with climatic anticipation—showing a wiseness beyond his experience.

But while Animal Kingdom is undoubtedly robust, sophisticated, and confident, Michod fails to establish clear character motivation. After laying the foundation for complex, layered characters, the script lets us learn why they do what they do, and we start to perceive some of their decisions to be without reason. Craig, a seasoned armed robber, becomes oddly paranoid and unglued after being routinely questioned by the police. Janine remains strangely positive during life’s most tragic moments—and then becomes a completely different person in the film's final minutes. And Pope, so eloquently peculiar and psychotic, seems to step completely out of character from time to time, as when he questions J's girlfriend about her involvement with the police, seemingly out of the blue. And lastly, J's constant despondent stare and lack of emotion seems a bit overdone. Not until the very last sequence do we get any sense of him reacting to what's going on—and by then it's far too late.

Though it's about 20 minutes too long and a bit uneven, Animal Kingdom is still a well-crafted film. It's solid entry in the classic gangster film genre told in captivating way, and thus worthy of the World Cinema Jury Prize it took home from Sundance. It’s also a promising start for Michod, who's bringing some much-deserved attention to Australian cinema.

Animal Kingdom opens in the U.S. August 13th.