Sunday, September 12, 2010

Animal Kingdom (2010)

Director: David Michôd. Cast: James Frecheville, Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce, Luke Ford, Jacki Weaver. 113 min. Rated R. Australia. Drama.

(Spoiler Alert!)

Incredible opening: two people sitting calmly on a couch in an apartment, and after watching them a few minutes, you realize one is dead. This Australian crime non-thriller in the Melbourne suburbs offers an innovative style: it sprinkles a very slow narrative rhythm with sudden bursts of extremely unexpected violence - which causes one to literally jump from one's seat at multiple shocking (but very appropriately placed) moments throughout the film, and gradually makes you incredibly vigilant for more. Jacki Weaver's "Godmother" role will become a strong Oscar contender.

Memorable quote: "You've done some bad things, sweetie."

Mo says:

2 comments:

  1. Exactly when I was writing my comment in “The American”, I thought with myself :
    today I saw another incredible opening scene… in “Animal Kingdom” !
    and the other point is facing another strange mother, Isn't amazing ? other than her great performance, seems this year is the year of wired mothers, one in the “ Fighter “and now in here.But the latter made me scared badly , more than her monster sons’. I'm really absorbed to such excellent crime family drama almost always., it was some sort of movies that I can’t get off of some scenes for a while.
    I'm also in love with the placement of Air Supply's “All Out of Love” among all of those violence feature in the movie. lovely song & lyric indeed.

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  2. I was listening to a interview with Jackie Weaver on NPR, and she was saying she had improvised the strange habit of kissing her own sons on the lips, just to make her character look very abnormal (and as a result, quite frightening). You can find the interview here:

    http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=132938144&m=133018336

    or here:

    http://www.npr.org/2011/01/18/132938144/weaver-and-michod-go-inside-animal-kingdom

    I'm very pleased she's been nominated for an Oscar. But not sure if she'll win.

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