Animals (2019 film)

Last updated

Animals
Animals (2019 film) poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Sophie Hyde
Written by Emma Jane Unsworth
Based on Animals
by Emma Jane Unsworth
Produced by
  • Sarah Brocklehurst
  • Cormac Fox
  • Sophie Hyde
  • Rebecca Summerton
Starring
Cinematography Bryan Mason
Edited byBryan Mason
Music by
  • Zoë Barry
  • Jed Palmer
Production
companies
Distributed byBonsai Films (Australia)
Release date
  • 28 January 2019 (2019-01-28)(Sundance)
Running time
109 minutes
CountriesAustralia
Ireland
LanguageEnglish

Animals is a 2019 comedy-drama film directed by Sophie Hyde, starring Holliday Grainger and Alia Shawkat. It was screened in the Premieres category at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. An adaptation of Emma Jane Unsworth's 2014 novel of the same name, the film follows best friends Laura and Tyler whose lifestyle comes under scrutiny just as Laura becomes engaged to a teetotaller.

Contents

Plot

Best friends Laura, a struggling writer working as a barista, and her best friend and flatmate Tyler, an American woman who is estranged from her family, are both heavy partiers living in Dublin. The early part of the film shows their close friendship in their late twenties as they consume large quantities of wine and drugs through the night, sometimes engaging in casual sex with a man but mostly just enjoying each other's company.

Tyler is included in Laura's family gatherings, with a pregnant sister (who becomes mother to a baby daughter) playing a part in the plot and character development.

Circumstances change when Laura meets and then gets engaged to concert pianist Jim, who shortly afterwards gives up alcohol. Laura continues her partying lifestyle with Tyler, but starts spending nights with Jim.

Inevitably the dynamics of the various relationships change, and more so after they become friends with a poet, Marty, to whom Laura is attracted, and his circle of literary friends. Laura struggles to make progress with her novel throughout the film.

Various events in each of their lives unfold, with questions about life, and especially women's roles, raised and explored both implicitly and explicitly. With the development of the women's friendship front and centre of the film, it does not take the route of a typical neat and happily resolved "Hollywood ending", but ends optimistically with Laura finding her creativity beginning to flow as she finds a way forward.

Cast

Production

Director Sophie Hyde said that it was the book which drew her in and inspired her to make the film, giving voice to women's experiences in a way that she had not seen very often on screen and in a way that felt connected to her own experience. She and Unsworth worked collaboratively from early in the creative process. The film was made in and around Dublin, whereas the book is set in Manchester. [1]

Shawkat said she was drawn to the film owing to its being driven by women, and she was able to bring her life experience into her creation of the character. [2] Both main actors agreed that the personal chemistry between the two worked well on set because they had hit it off in real life. [3]

Release

After premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in early 2019, where it was well received, [4] [5] [6] the film had its Australian premiere at a "pop-up" event at the Adelaide Film Festival on 5–6 April 2019. [1] [7]

It screened at the Sundance London in June 2019 [8] and opened in UK cinemas in August, attracting good reviews. [9] It was released in Australia on 12 September 2019. [10]

Reception

The film has an 87% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 63 reviews, as of January 2022. [11]

Sundance said "Shawkat’s live-wire performance gives Tyler an anarchic comic edge that perfectly complements Grainger’s soulful turn as the conflicted and creatively blocked Laura". [6]

The Adelaide Review called it "a visually stunning and often surprising film". [1]

IndieWire ’s Kate Erbland said that Grainger and Shawkat are wonderful together, and that the film "revels in the messiness of life, and the many love stories it can contain”. [12] Variety ’s Guy Lodge hailed the comedy as a commercial leap forward and wrote of its "ideally matched stars" and said that it compared favourably with the "more superficially subversive female leads of comedies like Trainwreck". [13] The Hollywood Reporter ’s Leslie Felperin found Unsworth’s script "insightful in its treatment of the complexity of female friendships". [12]

C.J. Johnson, of the Film Critics Circle of Australia, called the film "Significantly hipper, more thoughtful and more nuanced than your typical RomCom, while being significantly tamer, more formulaic and more commercially-minded than her previous film 52 Tuesdays ". [14]

In the UK, The Guardian's Benjamin Lee called the film "one that attendees should be breathlessly, excitedly discussing around town, urging everyone else to see immediately", [15] and Time Out said it "should delight anyone who watches it". [16]

Awards and nominations

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alia Shawkat</span> American actress (born 1989)

Alia Martine Shawkat is an American actress. She is known for her performances as Maeby Fünke in the Fox/Netflix television sitcom Arrested Development, Dory Sief in the TBS and HBO Max dark comedy series Search Party (2016–2022), and Gertie Michaels in the 2015 horror-comedy film The Final Girls, as well as her roles in State of Grace and The Old Man. She has also guest starred as historical figures Frances Cleveland, Virginia Hall, and Alexander Hamilton on Comedy Central's Drunk History.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Linney</span> American actress (born 1964)

Laura Leggett Linney is an American actress. She is the recipient of several awards, including two Golden Globe Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards, and has been nominated for three Academy Awards and five Tony Awards.

Miguel Arteta is a Puerto Rican director of film and television, known for his independent film Chuck & Buck (2000), for which he received the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award, and for the films The Good Girl (2002) and Cedar Rapids (2011).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Speed</span> Australian musician (born 1979)

Benjamin Peter Speed is an Australian musician who composes scores for film and television. He previously performed and recorded as Mister Speed or Mr Speed, and was vocalist and songwriter in the Australian alternative, electronic, and hip hop band The New Pollutants.

<i>Amreeka</i> 2009 American film

Amreeka is a 2009 independent film written and directed by first-time director Cherien Dabis. It stars Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem, Hiam Abbass, Alia Shawkat, Yussuf Abu-Warda, Joseph Ziegler, and Miriam Smith.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sundance Film Festival</span> American annual independent film festival held in Salt Lake City, Utah

The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,660 attending in 2016. The festival takes place every January in Park City, Utah; Salt Lake City, Utah; and at the Sundance Resort, and acts as a showcase for new work from American and international independent filmmakers. The festival consists of competitive sections for American and international dramatic and documentary films, both feature films and short films, and a group of out-of-competition sections, including NEXT, New Frontier, Spotlight, Midnight, Sundance Kids, From the Collection, Premieres, and Documentary Premieres. Many films premiering at Sundance have gone on to be nominated and win Oscars such as Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor in a Leading Role.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holliday Grainger</span> English actress (born 1988)

Holliday Clark Grainger, also credited as Holly Grainger, is an English screen and stage actress. Some of her prominent roles are Kate Beckett in the BAFTA award-winning children's series Roger and the Rottentrolls, Lucrezia Borgia in the Showtime series The Borgias, Robin Ellacott in the Strike series, DI Rachel Carey in the Peacock/BBC One crime drama The Capture and Estella in Mike Newell's adaptation of Great Expectations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fra Fee</span> Northern Irish actor and singer

Fra Fee is an Irish actor and singer known for his role as Kazi in the Disney+ series Hawkeye, which is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He portrayed Courfeyrac in Tom Hooper's 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables. Fee also played the role of Michael Carney in Jez Butterworth's The Ferryman at the Royal Court Theatre, West End, and Broadway, directed by Sam Mendes. For his performance, he won the 2018 WhatsOnStage Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Play.

Emma Jane Unsworth is a British writer from Bury, Greater Manchester. She writes short stories and has had three novels published; Hungry, the Stars and Everything, Animals and Adults.

<i>52 Tuesdays</i> 2013 coming of age film

52 Tuesdays is a 2013 Australian coming of age drama film directed by Sophie Hyde, with the screenplay written by Matthew Cormack and story by Cormack and Hyde. The film centres on a teenage girl dealing with the gender transition of a parent. The film showed at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, where it was not only nominated for the Grand Jury Prize, but won the Best Director Award. Over the following year it won numerous other awards and garnered global critical acclaim.

Maya Newell is an Australian filmmaker, known for the feature-length documentaries Gayby Baby (2015) and In My Blood It Runs (2019). She works at Closer Productions in Adelaide, South Australia.

Tilda Cobham-Hervey is an Australian actress. She made her film debut in 52 Tuesdays, a critically-acclaimed independent film directed by Sophie Hyde, and has also appeared on stage. She appeared in the 2018 film Hotel Mumbai, and starred as feminist icon Helen Reddy in the 2019 biopic I Am Woman. In 2023 she starred in the Amazon Prime TV series The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.

<i>Animals</i> (novel)

Animals is the second novel of British writer Emma Jane Unsworth. The book was published in 2014 by Canongate Books in the U.K. and HarperCollins in the U.S. and Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sophie Hyde</span> Australian film producer, writer and director

Sophie Hyde is an Australian film director, writer, and producer based in Adelaide, South Australia. She is co-founder of Closer Productions and known for her award-winning debut fiction film, 52 Tuesdays (2013) and the comedy drama Animals (2019). She has also made several documentaries, including Life in Movement (2011), a documentary about dancer and choreographer Tanja Liedtke, and television series, such as The Hunting (2019). Her latest film, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, premiered at the Sundance Festival on 23 January 2022, and was released on Hulu and in cinemas in the UK and Australia.

Closer Productions is a film and television production company founded by filmmakers Sophie Hyde and Bryan Mason in Adelaide, South Australia, in January 2004. It is known for award-winning feature films such as 52 Tuesdays (2013) and Animals (2019), as well as television series and documentary films.

Amy Molloy is an Irish actress born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She resides in London UK.

<i>Good Luck to You, Leo Grande</i> 2022 film by Sophie Hyde

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a 2022 sex comedy-drama film directed by Sophie Hyde and written by Katy Brand. The film stars Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack. The story revolves around a woman who seeks a young sex worker to help her experience pleasurable sex.

Renée Webster is a filmmaker from Western Australia. She is known for her direction work on several TV series, including The Heights, and on television commercials. Her first feature film, How to Please a Woman, was released in 2022.

Sophie Wilde is an Australian actress. For her performance in the horror film Talk to Me (2022), she won the AACTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She was also nominated for the BAFTA Rising Star Award, among other awards.

<i>Drift</i> (2023 film) Film directed by Anthony Chen

Drift is a 2023 drama film directed by Anthony Chen from a screenplay by Susanne Farrell and Alexander Maksik. It is based on the novel A Marker to Measure Drift by Maksik. A French, British and Greek co-production, it is Chen's first English-language feature. The film stars Cynthia Erivo, Alia Shawkat, Ibrahima Ba, Honor Swinton Byrne, Zainab Jah and Suzy Bemba. Drift had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on 22 January 2023. It was featured at the 54th IFFI 2023, where it won the ICFT-UNESCO Gandhi Medal-Special Mention for Best Film on peace and inter-cultural dialogue.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Marsh, Walter (28 March 2019). "Sophie Hyde on Animals, nostalgia and letting friendships die". The Adelaide Review . Retrieved 29 March 2019.
  2. ↑ Frangos, Daniela (1 April 2019). "Alia Shawkat, Animals and Reaching Adulthood". Broadsheet. Retrieved 3 April 2010.
  3. ↑ Animals: Alia Shawkat, Holliday Grainger, Sophie Hyde, Emma Jane Unsworth - 8 February 2019 on YouTube
  4. ↑ Halligan, Fionnuala (29 January 2019). "'Animals': Sundance Review". Screen Daily. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  5. ↑ "Sundance Unveils Politics-Heavy Lineup Featuring Ocasio-Cortez Doc, Feinstein Drama". The Hollywood Reporter. 28 November 2018. Retrieved 17 January 2019.
  6. 1 2 "Animals". Sundance Institute. Archived from the original on 17 November 2020. Retrieved 30 March 2019.
  7. ↑ "Animals". Adelaide Film Festival. 2 October 2018. Retrieved 29 March 2019.
  8. ↑ Thompson, Jessie (28 May 2019). "Sundance London 2019 line-up: First look at this year's film festival programme". ES. Evening Standard. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  9. ↑ Groves, Don (5 August 2019). "Lively launch for Sophie Hyde's 'Animals' in the UK". if.com.au. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  10. ↑ Keast, Jackie (13 September 2019). "Sophie Hyde hopes 'Animals' has time to reach its audience". IF Magazine. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  11. ↑ Animals at Rotten Tomatoes
  12. 1 2 Groves, Don (30 January 2019). "Sophie Hyde's 'Animals' wins plaudits after world premiere in Sundance". if.com.au. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
  13. ↑ Lodge, Guy (29 January 2019). "Sundance Film Review: 'Animals'". Variety. Retrieved 7 April 2019.
  14. ↑ Johnson, C.J. "Animals Review". Film Critics Circle of Australia.
  15. ↑ Lee, Benjamin (31 January 2019). "Animals review – untamed female friendship drama is a Sundance triumph". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  16. ↑ McNally, Greer (17 July 2019). "Animals". Timeout. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  17. 1 2 Ritman, Alex (1 December 2019). "British Independent Film Awards: 'For Sama' Wins Top Prize". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 24 March 2024.
  18. ↑ "2019 Awards Winners". Film Critics Association of Australia. Retrieved 24 March 2024.
  19. ↑ Keast, Jackie (14 July 2020). "Sophie Hyde, Jeffrey Walker receive double ADG Award nominations". IF Magazine. Retrieved 24 March 2024.
  20. ↑ "South Australia scores big at the 2019 SPA Awards". SAFC . 8 January 2020. Retrieved 24 March 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.