Release: June 3

Running time: 113 minutes

Rating: MA (strong violence, drug use and coarse language)

In an early sequence in the new Australian crime film Animal Kingdom, tattooed drug dealer Craig (Sullivan Stapleton) is playing with his mobile at a red light. A singlet-wearing skinhead parks next to Craig and tells him, “Light’s green you idiot. You have got a staring problem.” Smiling at the driver, Craig follows the car down a inner city, Melbourne side street and hands over his teenage nephew ‘J’ a revolver, telling him, “Go get him. Let him know whose king.”

Trembling, J exits the car and points the trigger at the other driver. Craig laughs as the other driver returns to his car and asks his nephew, “How did that feel? You get a stiffy?”

In Animal Kingdom, first-time director David Michôd paints a chilling, tragic study of intergenerational abuse and violence, bringing the viewer into a chilling, genuinely disturbing environment in which violence and addiction become normalised through violence and abuse and the Melbourne suburbs become a fragmented, unwieldy battleground for revenge and aggression. The Codys are one truly rotten family (Craig- the cocaine-addicted middle brother- is not even the worst of them) and yet the greatness of this film is the way in which the filmmakers never lose sight of the characters’ essential humanity in their disturbing, masculinised world. Animal Kingdom is powerful, intelligent filmmaking, and may be the best Australian film since Ray Lawrence’s Lantana.

In Animal Kingdom, first-time actor James Frecheville plays Joshua ‘J’ Cody, a Melbourne teenager confused and lost after the overdose of his mother. Brought into the fold of her criminal family, J finds love and attention from his adoring grandmother Janine (Jacki Weaver) and is invited into the criminal world of her three grown sons- armed robber Andrew ‘Pope’ Cody (Ben Mendelsohn), Craig and the youngest Darren (Luke Ford)- as well as family friend Barry Brown (Joel Edgerton).

For a first feature, Michôd’s sense of control is stunning. Unlike the Underbelly series- which is a series of cartoon-like performances directed with steroid zest by a group of over-eager, vulgar television directors- there is a keen precision and intelligence to the filmmaking here. Originally a successful short-film director (in 2008, he presented two shorts at the Sundance Film Festival, a triumph that lead to the financing of Animal Kingdom and Hesher, an American psychodrama that he co-wrote and also debuted at Sundance), Michôd choreographs the film’s action with accomplished, unpretentious minimalism. The director uses Adam Arkapaw’s lucid, alive cinematography to gradually suggest the screenplay’s growing sense of paranoia and isolation, whilst the film is also well served by the slow, methodical rhythm of Luke Doolan’s editing. As a director, Michôd handles his very fine, textured screenplay with extraordinary clarity and skill, allowing his sequences to develop with increasing urgency and tension. This is particularly evident in the filmmakers’ very effective use of Air Supply’s “All Out of Love” in which Sam Petty’s chilling, symphonic sound design and Antony Partos’ unsettling score help contrast with the 1980’s hit to convey the increasing claustrophobia and troubled, dysfunctional centre of Pope’s character.

Unlike the genre-orientated formalism of Getting’ Square or the baroque stylisation of Chopper¸ Michôd’s tone is not corrective or self-consciously stylised, but humanist and poignant. Citing Michael Mann’s epic masterpiece Heat as a strong influence over the visual and storytelling texture of his debut, the Australian director paints a realist, very gripping portrait of modern criminality. Michôd’s screenplay uses the Cody family dynamic as a centre to this very ugly, intense underworld, using their struggles to convey the role of violence and aggression in their lives (in an earlier sequence, Pope and Craig role-play wrestling in the living room, suggesting both their brotherly affection and Pope’s need to control and manipulate).

Often, the crime genre lends itself to a flashy, over-the-top performance style (which was effectively embodied as comic-tragedy by Eric Bana in Chopper and Richard III-like psychopathy in Romper Stomper), but these performers personify their roles with a striking conviction and unpretentious immersion, conveying the tragic, powerful pathos of the Codys’ familial, but ultimately grim existence.

First-time actor Frecheville is very impressive as the troubled, isolated J. Embodying the role with a naked, fractured vulnerability, the newcomer suggests the characters’ struggle to find his place in the world with an unexpected intensity and openness. Former Alvin Purple girl Weaver gives a star-making performance as the slimy, Lady MacBeth-like matriarch whilst Luke Ford (The Black Balloon) also excels as the youngest brother struggling with feelings of emasculation and his inability to prevent his older brother’s self-destructive behaviour. Edgerton- too often (mis)cast as the boyish, naïve hero in films like The Night We Called it a Day- finds the perfect role for his accessible, everyman-charm as the family man/armed robber, Barry.

Most impressively, the much-in-demand Mendelsohn (Australia, Knowing, Beautiful Kate)- who was, coincidently, turned down for Crowe’s iconic role as the fearsome neo-Nazi in Romper Stomper- gives an original, disturbing portrayal as the troubled, unhinged Uncle Pope. Unlike the more instinctive, alpha-male authority of Stapleton- who exudes an angular, frightening ferocity as the thuggish middle brother- Mendelsohn conveys a more unsettled, subtle form of chaos for the (barely)functioning Cody family. Gone is the boyish, avuncular charm of his earlier turns in The Year My Voice Broke and Cosi. Instead, Mendelsohn- so often low-key and dry in his work as the Australian everyman in films like Mullet- pulsates with edgy tension and unpredictable anxiety, smothering his brothers and J with his unbalanced attempts to project fatherly authority and affection.

On the other side of the force, nobody suggests a quietly sarcastic sincerity quite like the inventive Guy Pearce. As a senior homicide detective, Pearce effectively suggests a lifetime of compromise and tension within the force under the guise of quiet professionalism. Recently, Pearce has made quiet, but important contributions to some terrific films by significant filmmakers (he appeared fleetingly in The Hurt Locker and The Road and will feature in the new works by Far From Heaven’s Todd Haynes and The Damned United’s Tom Hooper) and he is very effective in his balance of paternal conviction with subdued manipulation of the edgy J.

Animal Kingdom has the look and feel of an instant classic. Michôd’s stunning, forceful, absolutely vital crime drama is an intense, gripping thriller and a very moving tragedy of intergenerational violence and abuse.

VERDICT: HIGH DISTINCTION

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