Animals Review

Based on a novel by Emma Jane Unsworth, Animals is a Dublin set film about two women in their early 30s who have refused to give up a hard-partying lifestyle.

Laura (Holliday Grainger) is a 32-year-old barista and aspiring novelist who lives with her best friend, Tyler (Alia Shawkat). They continue to drink heavily, party hard and take drugs even though their friends have grown up. A rift develops between the pair when Laura starts a new relationship with a pianist called Jim (Fra Fee).

Animals has been dubbed by some critics as “Withnail With Girls,” in reference to the ‘80s cult classic Withnail and I. Like the lads in Withnail and I, Laura and Tyler were heavy drinkers and lived in squalor. But that’s as far as the comparisons go. Withnail and I was one of the most quotable cult British films and incredibly funny. Animals was more dramatic; the only humour in Animals came in small bursts like when Laura wakes up and finds herself tied to her bed.

Animals was a character-based film that allowed the actors to sink their teeth into. The focus of the film was on the friendship between the ladies and shows how Tyler was a bad influence on Laura. Tyler always talks Laura into drinking and convinces her to shirk her responsibility. Tyler was jealous that Laura has found a man and move on with her life like everyone else in their age bracket. Tyler offers philosophical musings about the nature of art and the construct of marriage to convince Laura to do certain actions. Tyler’s influence leads to Laura doing some stupid things like getting drunk before visiting her new-born niece. Although Tyler was a corrupter, she was shown to have issues because she’s estranged from family and if Laura leaves then Tyler has no one.

The other aspect of Animals was Laura’s artistic aspirations. She has been writing her novel for 10 years and she only has 10 pages to show for it: so she has the same writing prowess as Brian Griffin. Anyone who partakes in writing can relate to Laura’s struggles because she’s always writing notes, embarrassed to share her work, and even when Laura makes time to write on her laptop, she unable to write anything. Laura talks with Jim about her struggles and that she has thought about quitting, whilst Jim tells her that she needs to keep ploughing away at it.

Whilst Animals was great with its character work, it had a loose plot. This type of story works in a novel because it can be divided into sessions and focus on particular issues. For a film, this is harder to achieve: not impossible because a film could have a non-linear narrative or be divided into chapters. In Animals’ case, the relationship between Laura and Tyler changes as they face different events during this change.

As a side note, the novel was originally set in Manchester but due to funding issues, the location was changed to Dublin. Despite the setting in the Irish capital, the only real difference the location change made was the accents. The film didn’t go to any major landmarks and it could have been set in any affluent country.

Animals was a great showcase for Grainger and Shawkat talents and it made for a decent character study. But it was one of those films that critics like more than general audiences, as evident by the Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB scores.