Collin Schiffli's Animals is a harrowing portait of addiction, following the exploits of a young couple in Jude and Bobbie, who live their lives solely for the purpose of getting high. Homeless and impoverished, the young couple masterfully con and steal from unexpecting citizens, doing whatever it takes to feed their addiction. Eventually the young couple comes face-to-face with the stark and dangerous reality of their situation when Jude becomes hospitalized and forced into a treatment center. While there have been many films about drug addiction, Cllin Schiffli's Animals stands out in its ability to capture the all consuming quality of addiction, the wasted potential, and destructive effect it has on all rational thought and feeling. From the elaborate schemes and swindles the couple pull off in order to make money alone it's apparent early on in Animals that Jude and Bobbie are intelligent and imaginative individuals, but all their efforts, energy and focus are solely consumed by their need and desire to get high. They are a case of wasted potential, each coming from middle-class familes where they had the ability to make something of themselves. Animals uses these characers to expose the power of addiction, showing how far junkies are willing to go in order to reach their next high. Jude and Bobbie are two individuals that love each other, and the film's strongest attribute is how it slowly exposes their willingness to risk each other's safety at times for the need to fuel their addition. Even the powerful essence of love feels under-matched against the force of addiction in this film. Animals is a bleak film about drug dependency but luckily it has more to say than simply being a cautionary tale, showing the importance of rehabilitation. When Jude and Bobbie are confronted by the police it ends in unecessary violence and more drug use, with Jude and Bobbie only getting help when they are forceably removed from one and other, due to Jude being forced into rehabilitation after a hospital visit. Animals comments on the collective mindset of addiction, showing how even priviledged individuals can fall victim to drug dependence. These two indivdiuals contemplate and do horrible things to feed their addiction but Animals makes a very important point, in reminding the viewer that the actions of drug addict does not define their actions as a human being, simply someone who needs help. Buoyed by two fantastic performances by David Dastmalchian & Kim Shaw, Collin Schiffli's Animals is a grim examination of addiction that offers a glimmer of hope in capturing the importance of rehabilitation.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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