Animal Kingdom

On Blu-Ray & DVD now

by Joanna Orland

This highly acclaimed Australian film may have passed you by the first time round. With all its high accolades, it didn’t exactly do anything at the Oscars. But featuring a relatively unknown Australian cast (I say this from my Canadian-UK perspective), along with a special appearance by Guy Pearce, this film has some stellar acting.

The only real let down of the cast is the main boy. He is totally unreadable, which works for elements of the plot, but he is really hard to empathize with at all. When the world is going to shit around him, he remains stone cold.

The acting that deserves the most praise is the role of the matriarch character played by Jacki Weaver. Now that is one cold-hearted, loveable, hateable, hard-ass, soft-ass, bitch.

This film is intense and not for everyone. And not for every mindset- You need to be ready. Especially as it only gets worse as it progresses (in a gripping dramatic sort of way… it’s a great film).