Review of Animal Kingdom (2010) by Luke M — 15 Jun 2014

The first time I watched Animal Kingdom, I was unimpressed because I didn't embrace the film's style or the impeccable cast, and I didn't feel many thrills from the overall atmosphere. I also felt the pacing was rather slow and that it was overrated, and re-watching it I still felt some of the latter in a smaller form.

But looking back at it now, it's obvious to me that Animal Kingdom is distinctly Australian and achieves maximum on a limited budget and has a consistent sense of thrills the entire time because the idea of who the villains are is actually constantly varying. The story chronicles a family of criminals and their conflicts with corrupt police officers, and the true villain is constantly put into question while a single stoic teenage boy is forced to be in the middle of it all. The atmosphere is largely enhanced by the fact that through the way the story takes place in the mindset of a stoic character, the cinematography is constantly eerie and of utterly top quality, and David Michod's capture of the atmosphere through the cinematography and constant use of silence and symbolism is just utterly excellent and a fresh display of the genre of Australian crime movies made famous by such films as Two Hands.

David Michod makes a breakthrough directional debut and gives his best to ensure that a story based on The Walsh Street Murders turns into one of the best modern films Australia has to offer, and it chronicled a complicated event and the question of simple hero and villain story structure with skilled direction and a great screenplay.

Animal Kingdom also features the introduction to a career for James Frecheville, as well as a boost for Joel Edgerton and Jacki Weaver.

James Frecheville makes a fine debit, and through his level of stoic characterisation Joshua "J" Cody becomes somewhat reminiscent of Heath Ledger's performance as Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain, not in terms of the sexuality but the way his mind is closed out to the world as to try and protect himself from the world around him. However, J conversely must develop and grow faster JB an effort to survive the horrors around him that were dragged in merely because he needed to stay with family. James Frechevile gives a great lead in Animal Kingdom and through simple acting he manages to create a strong characterisation of a simplistic character.

Joel Edgerton has never disappointed me, and the fact that his character was given little screen time hits me hard, not the same way it hits the characters but it is a hell of a thing to witness, and within his brief time on screen he becomes the most likeable character of the story even though he's a criminal, and if anything he makes you understand how the Walsh Street Murders seemed fairly justifiable to the killers. Joel Edgerton does all that in a small period of time on screen.

Ben Mendelsohn captures excellence in his performance as what we Australians would call "the filthy rotten scum that plague the streets" with his insanity being the intimidation moreso that any other feature of him, since his character doesn't require weapons to intimidate, but just the mind and voice of absolute scum. Ben Mendelsohn gives it his all and gives a character all too memorable to the audience.

And the most acclaimed performance of the film goes to Jacki Weaver, whose convincing facade of a sweet character who is secretly an evil matriarch mirrors Jacki Weaver's facade that she is indeed Janine "Smurf" Cody, and she has this smile which just fits all the emotions of the character into it.

However, I must say despite being an excellent performance that I didn't witness anything that could be defined as worthy of an Academy Award nomination. That's possible because I don't know the history of Smurf's characterisation in relation to Kathleen Pettingill, but then again I'm sure that few of the Anerican-Driven Academy Members would have when they nominated her for the Oscar, so I'm puzzled, especially now since the feat was repeated in The Silver Linings Playbook in which there was nothing she did that really stood out, despite giving a good performance.

So that would be the one insignificant main criticism I found with Animal Kingdom, along with the slow pacing and number of people telling me that it's "brutal" and "shocking" when in actuality I only felt mildly startled by several moments. But all in all, Animal Kingdom is one of the finest Australian films in years and provided a front for excellent actors to kick off.