Look what we’ve turned Ben Affleck into. After winning Oscars directing and doing the Batman thing, he’s now relegated to pulpy Netflix fare. Though I was hoping for more from him and his talents, at least Animals is better than the average streaming fodder. It would be funny to watch Affleck and Kerry Washington’s characters laugh at the romantasy of The Love Hypothesis.
It’s stressful times for the Kimball family. Mark (Ben Affleck) is running as an independent for mayor of Los Angeles, with his campaign manager Sam Allison (Steven Yeun) pushing Mark to dip further into his savings for a last big push. Mark’s wife Abagail (Kerry Washington) is trying to be supportive, but is growing more and more resentful of what she sees as almost a midlife crisisy ego trip from him. On Halloween, the Kimball’s son Denny (Christopher Woodley) and Hector (Jacob Estrada) son of the Kimball’s maid Cecilia Trujillo (Adriana Paz) go trick or treating…but never return. Mark receives a cryptic phone call, demanding $7 million, or they will kill Denny. Not the campaign problem the family was expecting to deal with.
Animals is basically a play for most of its runtime, with people going in and out of beautiful rooms in a big house, talking high stakes kidnapping tactics. Affleck does the best he can to make this movie feel as cinematic as possible, even in your home. Drone footage does heavy lifting to make this story feel bigger, reminding us stuff is happening outside the Kimball house. And he inserts two action setpieces; one is in the dark but exciting, and the other is the big finale, which I thought was pretty good and very scary. The way the kidnapper is treated here is gonna rub people the wrong way, but I thought it was handled ominously enough that it made the calls carry a little extra menace with what we don’t see.
And maybe the smartest move was bringing in big acting heavy hitters like Gillian Anderson, Kerry Washington, Steven Yeun, and Adriana Paz. The movie is at its best when everyone is trying to solve the kidnapping and the mayoral campaign, because it lets this group really become a fun ensemble. Affleck layers in the dropping of his campaigning persona, revealing the terse dickbag underneath. Steven Yeun is the calculating manipulating political shapeshifter, Kerry Washington as the tortured but also smart emotional reactor, Adriana Paz as the innocent caught in the crossfire, and Gillian Anderson, wonderful Gillian Anderson, as the cold, calm, voice of reason, devoid of any emotion whatsoever. Everyone’s attempts to win her over are met with non reactions, forcing them to adapt to this unstoppable force. The interpersonal dialogue is where Animals doesn’t work; Washington and Affleck really try to manufacture something but their relationship never really feels natural enough for us to invest in their plight.
As long as your expectations for Animals are tempered, you’ll have a good time. The best of these movies is intimidating Oscar fare. Ben Affleck’s latest isn’t that, but it is kinda trashy fun directed by a real director. Hopefully Ben gets some of this out of his system, and aims a little higher with his next flick, where his BFF isn’t globetrotting shooting a Chris Nolan movie.