2009 and 2010 have been banner years for crime films, although you wouldn’t know it to look at Hollywood’s output (there’s still hope that Ben Affleck can win one for the home team with his upcoming The Town); you have to search through indies and foreign films to find the delectable tales of deviancy and lawbreaking. Looming largest over that landscape is the Aussie import Animal Kingdom, a striking and compelling criminal family story that has passing resemblances to other crime films you’ve seen but is, in the end, completely its own beast.
Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker David Michôd, Animal Kingdom is about a bank robbing family in Melbourne. When we first enter the family – along with young Joshua, whose recently ODed mother kept him away from the family business – things are already on the decline. The Cody family has been hitting banks for a long time, and the police have had enough; the bank robbery squad has decided to bring their own justice to the situation and are through waiting for warrants and trials. Joshua, internalizing the pain of his mother’s death, finds his way through the debris as the family falls to pieces, which can be deadly in their business.
Michôd makes a remarkable debut here; assured and steady-handed, eschewing any showiness in favor of steady storytelling and character building. Animal Kingdom is kind of a slow burn, but it all pays off in the end – not in crazy action but in sheer, nail-biting suspense. Animal Kingdom slowly winds tighter and tighter, at first tricking you into thinking you know where it’s going and then blind-siding you again and again, leaving you convinced that any ending – no matter how horrible – is possible.
Joshua is a tough character for me. He’s one of those monosyllabic kids who wears a constant blank expression on his face, and I couldn’t tell at first whether newcomer James Frecheville was a lump or giving a great performance. That confusion fell away in the second half of the film as it slowly becomes clear that Frecheville is great in the role, and that the mumbling and the blankness is a choice that pays off. It reminded me of Tahar Rahim in A Prophet, although not quite as incredible as that transformative performance. Still, it was rough going for me in the beginning, and if Frecheville wasn’t surrounded by truly engaging actors I might have mentally bailed on the film (I can’t help it – that character type, the taciturn, unresponsive teen, irritates me to no end).
The Cody family is hinged entirely on two people – Joel Edgerton’s Barry and Jacki Weaver’s Janine. Barry is the brains and the charm of the family, the face that makes you think crime not only pays, it might tip as well. Edgerton is remarkable in the role; he brings smarts and cunning in the smallest moments, and he also feels organically like a member of that family.
Weaver, meanwhile, is simply stunning. Her Janine is the sweetness and sunshine version of Livia Soprano. Weaver plays Janine as the nicest, most loving grandmother in the world, always ready with a cup of tea and a strong hug, but underneath it all is the lioness at the head of the pride. Calculating and poisonous, Janine is terrifying in the most quiet moments. Weaver balances the two halves of the woman perfectly, making both the cheeriness and the evil completely real and not at all mutually exclusive.
Luke Ford ably supports as the stoner younger brother of the clan; my biggest complaint about Animal Kingdom is that even at 112 minutes it’s sort of too short, and I would have liked to see more of Ford. He gets really warmed up just as the movie is coming to an end, and I like to imagine a miniseries (or trilogy, a la Red Riding) where he gets more screen time. Getting just the right screen time is Guy Pearce as a cop trying to get Joshua to turn on the family. Wearing a silly mustache, Pearce brings a richness to a character whose personality is just barely glimpsed (which is a very good thing; a quick trip home to see Pearce play with his Down Syndrome daughter made me scared we were going to get a paper-thin saint. Instead Pearce manages to find the place where a good man remains interesting).
The big surprise is Ben Mendelsohn as Pope, the oldest of the brothers. His character’s descent into psychosis is steady and unrelenting, but it begins so quietly, so small, that you don’t even notice it happening. By the end, when he’s a full-blown psychopath, you feel the full weight of the transformation. It’s a wonderful performance, and the dread Mendelsohn brings to the film is flat out palpable. You know he’s going to do something terrible… but what will it be?
If this is how Michôd starts his features career, I can’t wait to see where he goes next. Animal Kingdom is rich and deep, filled with rich, realistic characters, shocking and brutal violence and an almost epic sense of family treachery and decay. There’s something positively Shakespearian about what’s on the screen here, and Michôd does it right. He makes no concessions to the audience but knows that his characters and the remarkable actors will bring us along to the finish; I eagerly await this one on home video because I want to revisit the detailed and true world that has been created here. Elegiac, powerful, sweeping and personal, Animal Kingdom is one of the best films this year.