Animals (2019) ****

 

Based on Emma Jane Unsworth's 2014 novel, “Animals” is a tale of a couple of drunks. Laura (Holliday Grainger) and Tyler (Alia Shawkat, from “Arrested Development”) are flatmates living a life of excess, drinking and drugging their way through a misspent youth. When Laura meets and becomes engaged to Jim, a straight-laced concert pianist, she keeps partying with Tyler, but the situation is unsustainable. The tug-of-war between the two most important people in Laura's life begins to strain both relationships, and the cracks begin to show.

“Animals” has been compared to “Withnail & I” for good reason. Like Withnail and his reprobate friend, Laura and Tyler live in filth, continually addling their brains. Where “Withnail & I' was a total farce, however, “Animals” is a more serious character study, with the focus on Laura and what she will do with her life. In college, she had shown promise as a writer, but she has now been “working” for years on her novel. Any attempt to get serious about her writing is sabotaged by Tyler, and the same thing happens with Laura's attempts to get serious about her relationship with Jim.

On one level, Tyler's motivation is easy to understand: She doesn't want to lose her drinking buddy and partner-in-crime. It's never completely clear, though, why she is so dedicated to stunting Laura's progress in life and to remaining stunted herself. She is aggressively against marriage, family, or sustaining anything that looks like personal growth.

“Animals” benefits from great source material (The novel was excellent.) and a great cast. Holliday Grainger and Alia Shawkat are pitch-perfect in these roles, sexy in one scene and then really committing to the grossness of excess in the next. It would be easy for a movie on this theme to veer into after-school special territory, but “Animals” avoids easy moralizing or a neat ending. It's a funny, satisfying, thought-provoking story about the challenge of being a complex, young human being.

4 stars out of 5