Another day, another traffic jam. A father, Fran\u00e7ois (Romain Duris), chides his son \u00c9mile (Paul Kircher) for feeding the family dog potato chips. He tells his son to stay away from them as well since they\u2019re probably not very good for him, and \u00c9mile rolls his eyes as any 16-years-old would. They argue. \u00c9mile gets out of their car in defiance since the traffic is at a standstill. Suddenly, an ambulance stuck in the opposite lane of traffic starts to wobble and out bursts a bird-like man. He escapes, and the son and the father run back to their car in shock. \u201cStrange days!\u201d a neighboring driver responds. It is an understatement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Thomas Cailley\u2019s striking sci-fi fantasy \u201cThe Animal Kingdom,\u201d the birdman is a sign of things to come. In this present-day world, some humans have started to genetically mutate into other species, morphing into winged, reptilian, beastly hybrids that the larger non-mutated society have decided to ostracize, keeping them in hospitals or zoo-like centers away from the rest of the population, even their loved ones, for the potential risk that they can hurt someone with their outsized claws, fangs, and wings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This was the case for \u00c9mile\u2019s mother, Lana, who is shown only briefly at first in the hospital with fur growing around her eyes. Soon, there are other creature sightings in the background and in the forest. This is their new normal. Running parallel to these fantastic beasts are problems of everyday life \u2013 of a son challenging his father\u2019s authority, Fran\u00e7ois starting a new job, and \u00c9mile struggling to fit into his new school. Then, \u00c9mile starts to have problems riding his bike, his mannerisms are changing beyond his control, his back feels different, and soon, fur and claws appear. He is also mutating.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Animal Kingdom\u201d moves swiftly between its characters\u2019 everyday problems and the story\u2019s fantastical elements in a magical realist way that quickly captivates its viewer. Cailley, who co-wrote the film with Pauline Munier, uses the creatures as a metaphor for how the world responds to health crises. Because they are not understood and feared, they are locked away from the rest of this society, which recalls how some countries isolated the first wave of HIV\/AIDS patients in the late \u201880s and early \u201890s. In the movie, characters spoke of other countries adapting to live side-by-side with the humanoid creatures and showed how politicized the issue became among \u00c9mile\u2019s classmates and Fran\u00e7ois\u2019 boss, which mirrored the discussion around how other countries handled the recent COVID-19 epidemic and how politicized the discourse around public health and safety became around the issue. That life still continued during these \u201cstrange days\u201d of masking, testing, periods of isolation, and family tragedy for some only makes \u201cThe Animal Kingdom\u201d all the more relevant.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another day, another traffic jam. A father, Fran\u00e7ois (Romain Duris), chides his son \u00c9mile (Paul Kircher) for feeding the family dog potato chips. He tells his son to stay away from them as well since they\u2019re probably not very good for him, and \u00c9mile rolls his eyes as any 16-years-old would. They argue. \u00c9mile gets …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[35,45,47,51],"class_list":["post-1358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science-fiction-movies","tag-adventure","tag-drama","tag-mystery","tag-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}