# 🎬The Animal Kingdom By [Crouch END Cinema](https://paragraph.com/@crouch-end-cinema) · 2024-02-18 --- _Dir. Thomas Cailley. France. 2024._ 130mins Back in 2014, French writer-director Thomas Cailley ended his debut feature, offbeat anti-romcom _Love at First Fight_ (_Les Combattants_), on a curious apocalyptic note. That’s where he picks things up with long-awaited follow-up _The Animal Kingdom_, a bold, altogether wild-up genre mash-up. Inspired by an original script by co-writer Pauline Munier, this is a father-son story set against a nightmare background of human-to-animal mutations, with an ominous end-of-days feel and a decided streak of Cronenbergian body horror – yet at the same time, a distinctive emotional warmth in the story of its teenage protagonist. 🟢 **Official trailer** [![]({{DOMAIN}}/editor/youtube/play.png)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khvsTFVEKHc) Rippling with visual invention, this Un Certain Regard opening title almost has too many ideas to be easily contained in its running length; but it has all it takes to cross over beyond its domestic market and score with genre fans, followers of outré auteur invention and teens-to-20s audiences alike. It also provides a significant boost in visibility both for director Cailley and his young star Paul Kircher, the revelation of Christophe Honoré’s _Winter Boy_ (2022). ![The Animal Kingdom ( 2024 )](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/69aaf0c6e96fee262bfabab8975176c319e7d722d0f479387eadd3921e671890.png) The Animal Kingdom ( 2024 ) At some time, seemingly in the near future, a mysterious condition is causing people to mutate into animals – like the creature seen making an explosive appearance in the opening sequence. Another casualty is a woman named Lara, wife to chef François (Romain Duris) and mother to teenage Emile (Kircher). The pair relocate to the south of France to be nearer Lara, currently interned in a holding faculty for ‘critters’ – as unsympathetic, fearful humans call them. François takes a job at a local eaterie, while Emile settles into a new school, where he forms a promising connection with classmate Nina (Billie Blain). ![The Animal Kingdom ( 2024 )](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/85638e48a07856d6c7f117ce4bea7ab909ca594893bb9dab4b60edee80c013a1.png) The Animal Kingdom ( 2024 ) When a group of animal-human hybrids escape, François is determined to comb the local forest in search of his errant wife. Meanwhile, Emile notices that his hearing is becoming more acute, and his fingernails a little sharper… As François teams up with sympathetic gendarme Julia (Adèle Exarchopoulos), Emile finds himself increasingly drawn to the strange new breed that are now his neighbours – in particular, bonding with birdman Fix (Tom Mercier, from 2019 Berlinale winner _Synonyms_). 🟢 **International Trailer** [![]({{DOMAIN}}/editor/youtube/play.png)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgB7smBkk4I) Much of _The Animal Kingdom_ (not to be confused with the similarly-named 2010 Australian drama) might seem familiar: hybrid creatures in the _Island of Dr Moreau_ tradition, icky bodily transformations as in _The Fly,_ even hints of _X-Men_\-style superhero imagery. What’s remarkable, though, is how cannily the film weaves its tropes together, and on what an ambitious scale. Even though it adheres mainly to a single locale, a provincial town surrounded by lush forests – it was shot in the south-western Gascony region – the staging of the action and the richly observed landscape photography by David Cailley (the director’s brother) convey an increasingly cosmic sense of a natural world rewriting its rules in the face of human incomprehension. ![The Animal Kingdom ( 2024 )](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/9bd166673683dfa5732a3a7196f411af473de3e25fef14534440dcc0075494d4.png) The Animal Kingdom ( 2024 ) T_he Animal Kingdom_ sets itself up as a brooding chiller, jump scares, freaky _coups de cinéma_ and all, but gradually shifts gear to become more poetic and tender. Notwithstanding occasional grotesque effects, the creature design, VFX and make-up departments jointly create visions of surreal beauty – not least in such simple images as a recognisably human gaze peering out from behind the scales of a person-size pangolin. Sound and FX work are impeccable all round, with a degree of perfectionism that shows the film going several notches beyond the usual standard for French genre product. ![The Animal Kingdom ( 2024 )](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/493bddfe90860ac0f23e0d67ff4825aa093a8b48b60d894269380777f5067a81.png) The Animal Kingdom ( 2024 ) Narratively, there are provocative themes at work here: the idea of nature reprogramming itself in the era of climate catastrophe, the suggestion that we may have to ready ourselves for a post-human order, as well as the familiar science-fiction trope of critter haters as virulent racists. ![The Animal Kingdom ( 2024 )](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/a26902fbfdd423c564cef9a40964fe591e66bfc147feb5540535e2a499653d8c.png) The Animal Kingdom ( 2024 ) Duris takes something of a backseat, but is forceful as the faintly bohemian family man trying to confront unthinkable crisis, while Exarchopoulos is by turns warm, brittle and punchy, if somewhat underused. A prosthetically transformed Mercier gives a startling, athletic performance as ornithologically-enhanced fugitive Fix, although his sequences are awkwardly out of keeping with the rest – at times perilously close to a starry-eyed Disneyfied take on superhero action. Kircher, however, pretty much owns the film as a candid, sometimes gauche, ultimately tormented embodiment of teenage vulnerability, with Emile’s fears and joys calibrated to terrifically sharp effect by a young actor whose stock is destined to soar. * **Genre:** Adventure, Drama, Sci-fi * **Original Language:** French * **Director:** Thomas Cailley * **Producer:** Pierre Guyard * **Writer:** Thomas Cailley, Pauline Munier * **Release Date (Theaters):** Mar 15, 2024  Limited * **Release Date (Streaming):** Mar 15, 2024 * **Runtime:** 2h 10m * **Distributor:** Magnet Releasing ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/81d08aeee267a9598a72ab8f5263eaadd2f266ff719baf89923a5d19ae2dcbb6.png) --- *Originally published on [Crouch END Cinema](https://paragraph.com/@crouch-end-cinema/the-animal-kingdom)*