Animal Kingdom
Cinema Nova, 06/09/2010
Status: Behind by 6 films
I’m not really all that taken with glorified crime stories - I never got into “The Sopranos” and mob or gangster movies rarely caught my interest. Australian crime stories interest me even less - I never saw an episode of “Underbelly” and am absurdly proud of that fact. What I am a fan of, though, is a story about a dysfunctional family. So in Animal Kingdom, a film about a dysfunctional Australian crime family, guess which was the bit I went for?
Seventeen year-old J (newcomer JAMES FRECHEVILLE) is taken in by his grandmother (JACKI WEAVER) when his mum dies of a heroine overdose. He’s reintroduced to the family his mum has tried to keep him away from - armed robbers and drug dealers - at a time when the family is disintegrating, pursued by a gone-rogue anti-armed robbery squad and a Serious Crimes detective named Leckie (GUY PEARCE).
Animal Kingdom has a spectacular cast - JOEL EDGERTON, BEN MENDELSON, LUKE FORD (The Black Balloon) added to those already mentioned. Even the bit part actors are terrific - DAN WYLLIE (Love My Way) and ANTHONY HAYES (Beneath Hill 60) with one, maybe two, lines. An actor that good in a bit part means there’s a hell of a lot of talent front and centre. (It’s nice to be reminded that Guy Pearce, although he’s been in some terrible, terrible, really just awful movies, he’s actually a terribly, terribly, really just awfully good actor.)
Director DAVID MICHOD treats the crime and violence elements of this story just as he treats the rest - it’s very domestic and messy and suburban. There’s no high speed car chases through the city, there’s not any swinging from helicopters, there’s not even any armed robberies. Just unglamorous, messy death in suburban supermarket car parks and streets. I liked that it was not glorified or made funny.
I went for the dysfunctional family, I stayed for the crime.
