I already started having problems with the premise of this horror-fantasy in the first minutes, despite how masterfully conceived the opening scene is. A father, Francois (Romain Duris), and his teenage son, Emile (Paul Kircher), are sitting in a Paris traffic jam, locked in a heated argument, when an ambulance nearby starts shaking and a bird-man pops out and starts threatening people before fleeing. The episode introduces the “disease” that is at the heart of the story, a condition that slowly transforms humans into seemingly random animals. As it turns out, Francois and Emile are on their way to the hospital to visit Francois’s wife and Emile’s mother, Lana, who is herself changing into what looks like an ape. During the movie we see other changelings patterned on lizards, wolves, and seals. The wide variety of species seems somewhat arbitrary and saps the film of coherence, even as a parable; but, more importantly, it indicates the script’s lack of focus, even as it offers up set pieces that are quite effective in making isolated points.

Lana is transported to a small town in the countryside where a “treatment facility” has been built for these “patients,” though as it turns out many have already left society and are living in the wild. The idea of the facility is that these creatures (or “critters,” as many citizens derogatorily call them) are considered dangerous and must be locked up. During transport, Lana escapes, and Francois spends much of the rest of the film looking for her as he and Emile start a new life in the town without letting their new neighbors know why they are there. As it happens, Emile starts showing signs of his own transformation that he at first keeps from his father, and as he tries to adjust to his new school and new friends, his dilemma becomes doubly terrifying. 

Thus The Animal Kingdom works on several allegorical levels: as a coming-of-age tale with queer overtones; and as a comment on racially charged prejudices about the “other.” For me it works best as a straightforward family drama, mainly because Duris and Kircher work so well together. Since emerging himself in film as a kind of awkward youth several decades ago, Duris has become one of France’s most versatile performers, and Kircher, who was so extraordinary in Winter Boy, can switch easily between panicked terror and goofball wiseguy without losing sight of the basic personality of his character. But Thomas Cailley’s direction can’t control the sudden shifts in tone, from comedy to horror to action to melodrama, as easily as the actors do and it’s often difficult to get a purchase on what he’s trying to achieve. When Francois berates a police officer for saying that the creatures must be locked away or killed, he yells that “in Norway” they’ve figured out a way for humans and changelings to live together in harmony. The joke falls flat because the scene is so charged with anger and frustration. It probably would have been hilarious if told in a different context. 

In French. Now playing in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551).

The Animal Kingdom home page in Japanese

photo (c)2023 Nord-Ouest Films-Studiocanal-France 2 Cinema-Artemis Productions