R16; 112 minutes. Out now.
This Australian crime drama loosely inspired by real events is mundane in setting, but epic in feeling.
Following the death of his junkie mother, Melbourne teenager "J" (James Frecheville) is taken in by his estranged grandmother Janine (Jacki Weaver) and thrust headlong into a world of casual violence and criminality inhabited by his bank-robbing uncles and their associates. As J comes to realise just how messed up his extended family is, a cop (Guy Pearce) attempts to offer him a way out.
With the sustained success of the Underbelly TV series, the need for a film with such similar subject matter might be questioned. But writer/director David Michod brings Scorsese-like heft to this story, blowing it up to operatic levels with heavy stylisation, without compromising the grittily invasive verisimilitude.
Most of the film takes place in drab suburban living rooms, which Michod smothers with dread and doom, daring the audience to relax. At the centre of it all is the almost-silent Frecheville, who barely has five lines in the entire movie. His blank expression betrays a disturbing comprehension of what surrounds him. But the whole cast here does impressive work, especially Ben Mendelsohn as one of J's uncles, an off-puttingly banal sociopath.
Animal Kingdom is the work of a film-maker clearly in love with the art form, and Michod uses a variety of methods to draw you into the story - the sound design alone makes this worth seeing. It is much more than just another "bad guys in stubbies" flick.
