Animal Kingdom

With my tummy full of yummy Tia Amo antipasto, I strolled over to the Nova with a mate to see the hot new Australian film Animal Kingdom. And I say hot, not in a gushy, girly, American celebrity kind of way, I mean red hot in that it's getting great reviews all over the place. So it won't surprise you to find another one here.

The magnificently orchestrated pace of this film keeps your body thrumming with tension from beginning to end. I knew not what to expect when I walked in, having read somewhere it was somehow linked to the story of known underworld figures in Melbourne, but I could tell from the reviews that this was no Underbelly.

There's no glorifying or romantacising criminal life here. This is a brutal, and one suspects realistic, portrayal of the both the bonds that tie families, and the consequences of living outside the law. These characters are not brilliant criminal masterminds, they're all fairly damaged human beings.

Writer/Director David Michod doesn't let the audience relax for a moment, keeping us taut and expecting the worst, and yet still catching us out with surprising plot developments. This is an unpleasant, uncomfortable movie for the viewer, balanced by outstanding performances from a stellar cast. Jacki Weaver's portrayal of matriarch Janine Cody chilled my marrow; in one scene with the equally brilliant Guy Pearce, you can see the character's cold madness distinctly in Weaver's eyes.

Ben Mendelsohn's character Pope seems innocuous at first, although the level of attention paid to him by the police gives you some indication that this is one bad dude. Bad doesn't seem like a strong enough word to apply to Pope, as we watch him casually and dispassionately dispose of those his paranoid mind believes are in his way.

Newcomer James Frecheville is compelling in the role of "J". A pretty non-descript looking fellow, he has surprisingly little dialogue for a lead character, yet still managed to be mesmerising on screen. The changes his character goes through are internally devestating, but externally subtle. But they're there nonetheless; he stands taller, and more open faced in the film's final sequence, no longer the bowed, slack-jawed, mumbling youth we meet in the opening scene. In fact there's a good deal of restraint and subtlety throughout the film; two of its many strengths.

Just like at a live performance, I do like to try and gauge the audience reaction at the cinema. At the afternoon session of Animal Kingdom at the Nova, people around me were tittering in the right places, gasping and shifting uncomfortably in their seats. One woman close to me uttered the word "fucker" contemptuously, during one scene. If that sounds like your kind of film, get along and see Animal Kingdom. But be prepared to be disturbed.