Animal Kingdom (David Michôd, 2010)
Fascinating, unsettling crime drama, opening with Josh and his mum sitting on the couch watching
Deal or No Deal, and ending with Josh giving his grandma a cuddle. A film where family constrains and corrodes, creating this weird insular, nebulous universe filled with resigned, laconic paranoia, intense connections (especially Jacki Weaver's grandma), and in Josh's case, a withdrawn, inarticulate watchfulness. The police of the armed robbery squad, or the drug squad - the ones in plainclothes - come across as these ominous figures in suits, as inexplicable and omnipresent as the suits in the Matrix, but sitting in Fords outside suburban homes.
A strange film, seemingly following the narrative of a boy's education in the underworld, it refuses to go down well-worn paths, instead opting for mood and atmosphere, echoing the nihilistic drift of the protagonists in the family in response to ruthless, crooked protagonists of the state. Where sullen paranoiacs lash out at the nearest convenient target. At times I was not convinced by this, as it refuses to go down the well-worn path of the classic cinematic narrative (one thinks of
Un prophete, and the education and ascent of a young man in the ways and hierarchy of the crime world), but the downward spiral has its own power. The score has shadows of the 80s with its synthetic tones and drones, and the cinematography captures the urban nightscape - especially the lighting - and the bleached 'burbs wonderfully. The Cody family ensemble is superb - especially Weaver as the matriarch, and Mendelsohn as Uncle Andrew - and Frecheville as the young Josh is either a genius, or his blank, downcast nature has been well-used by the director. I don't know. Kids these days are just so hard to read.