Animals review – authentic take on the quarter-life crisis

When is it time to quit partying and grow up? It’s a question that countless works of fiction have wrestled with over the years, and it’s one that Animals – the new film from Australian director Sophie Hyde, based on the novel by Emma Jane Unsworth – grapples with to a drink, drugs, and sex-fuelled excess. As an exploration of two young women and their hedonistic antics, depicted here with a refreshing evennes rarely glimpsed on screen, it doesn’t quite settle on an answer to the age-old question. Instead we get a fun and thought-provoking romp that only occasionally flirts with convention in its quest to probe that most terrifying prospect: singledom at 30.

Holliday Grainger gives her best performance as Laura, a “writer” in her early thirties who has never written anything. She, like best friend Tyler (Alia Shawkat), works as a barista and spends all her free time sleeping with strangers, drinking huge glasses of wine, taking drugs, and being hungover. Laura rationalises this behavior – in no part helped by Tyler’s incessant enabling – as part of the process of being a writer. She’s gaining experience, and it’s a mindset Tyler is keen to reinforce for fear of losing her partner in crime. But a candid moment at a family dinner makes Laura realise a truth she has long been neglecting: she’s been writing the same book for ten years, and she’s only ten pages in.

And so begins Laura’s quarter-life crisis, spurred on partly by her meeting with a handsome and seemingly perfect pianist, played by Fra Fee – a man she idolises all out of proportion as a means of giving her life some direction. This, of course, doesn’t bode well for Laura and Tyler’s friendship. What follows is a scenario we’ve seen in real life and on-screen time and time again, as two friends – previously inseparable – are forced upon different paths.

Is it a mere coincidence that Shawkat’s character is called Tyler, a name that can only inspire thoughts of Brad Pitt’s charismatic enabler in David Fincher’s Fight Club? She, just like cinema’s more famous Tyler, acts as the devil on the shoulder of a more mouldable other half. Laura is a little better at resisting her hedonistic urges than Tyler, but only a little. The difference is that Tyler drinks with unashamed abandon; Laura drinks to escape the responsibility of her own self-declared talent (“I’m a writer,” she says, not quite convincing herself – or us).

Set in Dublin – though really this could have been set anywhere given how little attention Hyde pays to the specifics of the great Irish city – the narrative unravels as an appropriately messy jumble of parties, sexual accounts, awkward moments, and – later – scenes of drug-fuelled self-discovery. The sheer of number glasses of wine, cocktails, and substances on display throughout Animals makes the experience of watching it feel like an extended hangover in and of itself. Wannabe writers who spend way to much time procrastinating are also sure to find the film somewhat sobering viewing.

Shawkat is, as always, a pleasure, though her character is given less dimension and eventually feels a little hard done by Laura’s own narrative arc. Most frustratingly, the film makes a suggestion that her wild nature is a result of some underlying issues with her family. Can’t she simply be a free spirit out of choice? Ultimately, though, these are small quibbles in a film that feels like an authentic portrait of early thirties panic. Even as Animals struggles to find its ending, you comes away feeling that no harsh judgements have been made about any of the characters or their choices. Maybe the final scene is most telling, as Laura – finally getting down to some writing – pours herself a glass of wine. Everything in moderation.

★★★★☆

By: Tom Barnard

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