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WE THE ANIMALS
Director: Jeremiah Zagar Cast: Evan Rosado, Shelia Vand, Raúl Castillo, Isaiah Kristian, Josiah Gabriel, MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:34 Release Date: 8/17/18 (limited); 9/7/18 (wider) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 6, 2018 We the Animals, co-writer/director Jeremiah Zagar's narrative feature debut, is an alternately realistic and lyrical examination of growing up in an unstable home. The movie focuses on a family of five—two parents and three sons—as they slip apart at the seams. Zagar and Daniel Kitrosser's screenplay (based on Justin Torres' novel) wants to understand all of these characters to one degree or another. The boys' mother, whom they call Ma (Shelia Vand), works a late shift at a factory and comes home too tired to make it to bed. Their father, called Paps (Raúl Castillo), is a nighttime security guard and is prone to fits of anger, which lead him to leave for extended periods of time. The boys, in order of age from oldest to youngest, are Manny (Isaiah Kristian), Joel (Josiah Gabriel), and, at the heart of the story, Jonah (Evan Rosado). The story is told from Jonah's perspective, as the boy offers voice-over musings about the state of his life and the turmoil within his family. There are clear signs of domestic abuse here, and Zagar keeps them off screen, because the sons have learned how to avoid—but not ignore—them. At first, the movie sticks almost exclusively to how the sons have formed an isolated unit within their household—warming up together with body heat because their parents have trouble paying the bills, wandering around the forest and the local neighborhood, increasingly getting into trouble. In the beginning, their trouble-making comes out of necessity (They shoplift because there's no food in the house). Later, it's because of anger and rebellion. Gradually, we get to know the parents a little better, too. Ma goes back and forth between leaving her husband, and Paps reveals that there's an undercurrent of insecurity and inadequacy beneath his angry surface. It's a simple tale, told with flashes of Jonah's imagination through rudimentary animation and, for the first two acts or so, an admirable degree of empathy for these characters. We the Animals ultimately falters enough, though, as the story gives more direct attention to Jonah and his burgeoning sense of identity. It doesn't quite come out of nowhere, but there's no avoiding the feeling that the movie is telling one story—and effectively at that—only to begin telling another before there's time to explore that angle as successfully. Copyright © 2018 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for
strong sexual content, nudity, language and some underage drug and
alcohol use)
