Reviewed by Harry Tomlin and Laina Deene
Harry: So, what would you say American Animals is about?
Laina: It’s a hybrid between a documentary and a drama based around supposedly true events. Basically, about these four teenage boys who try to commit a heist in their library based on films they have seen and preconceptions of committing a heist.
Harry: Yeah, it’s kind of the story of these two friends and the dynamic between them. You have Evan Peter’s character who is creating this fantasy for them both in the form of this heist and they both invest, in an attempt, to give themselves more of a purpose.
Laina: Apparently the two main guys are still best friends and I saw an interview with the director where he was saying that he literally just interviewed the four boys after hearing about the real story and based the whole film around that so like re-enacting bits and get Evan Peters and the other guy to act out bits after he has the interviews to structure it all.
Harry: That must be such a weird way of going about it though, because when I was watching it I imagined that they had planned out a story based on the true events and then asked all the guys certain questions to try and provoke a response.
Laina: The film is about being young and the fear of not knowing what to do with your life, and the dive to feel some kind of purpose and have some sort of meaning.
Harry: I guess essentially, it’s about these kids who don’t know where they fit in the world. There’s that quote that really resonated with me about so many great artists having had such suffering in their life that has led to them creating such great art and this kid feels like there isn’t anything dramatically different in his life, so he has no special perspective of the world. I guess I kind of related to it in that way.
Laina: I really liked how they used the interviews and incorporated them into the scenes and into the story. It was also really cool how they changed bits in the flashbacks based on each guys perspective of events. The music was really cool and the whole thing just flowed really well. I wasn’t bored at all.
Harry: I really liked how detailed Barry Keoghan’s character and the point of view they place you in. As the whole thing is or isn’t real it seems so plausible and that makes everything so much more engaging and interesting because this kid is so terrified of the repercussions and so confused about how he should be feeling or what he should be doing that he is the most interesting character to watch.
Laina: The cinematography was really nice too and the opening scene got me so into it the way it was cutting back and forth with these birds implying that they were making themselves up to look like them.
Harry: Yeah it was so crisp all the way through which I wasn’t expecting, I thought it was cool how it all linked to the actual title and the fact a lot of it was based around Charles Darwin and so the theme of American Animals and how they wove it through the story.
Laina: The only part I can think of I didn’t like was a part when the real people were crying in part of the interview because I kind felt like I got that from the scenes that were acted and I didn’t care so much about the real people crying in an interview because I hadn’t been on this journey with them really.
Harry: Yeah, I kind of found it jarring some of the way they cut back and forth. Like as a documentary style its cool, but when you are trying to make a narrative piece where you are meant to care about the characters it just kind of didn’t work for me and I found it would have been more engaging if they had just had a longer continuous narrative bit with interviews at the beginning and end.
Laina: It kind of just made want to do a heist the whole time because when you see it at beginning done like that it’s portrayed as fun and in a good light.
Harry: I guess it’s the irony of it though isn’t it. Its portraying it how they see it which is like a film or some great fantasy but then the hard truth of the climax brings it all back down to earth and undercuts that. And there were some properly intense bits and the framing of a more fun film just made them so much more extreme and tense.
Laina: If you like fast based, tense, gripping films that immerse you within the world of the film. Then you have to go and see this.
Harry: Yeah, the films a very fun ride that also makes you think and is very well crafted. We both highly recommend it.
What are we going to rate it then?
Laina: I’d probably give it a 9
Harry: I’d say like a high 7 so shall we give it an 8?