Animals is supposed to be set in Manchester, but is now set in Dublin, starring an English and an American actress as the leads and with an Aussie director behind the camera. But this melting pot works when it comes to leaving your partying days behind.
Holliday Grainger and Alia Shawkat play Laura and Tyler in the adaptation of Emma Jane Unworth’s book of the same name – two best friends who spend their 20s and, in Laura’s case, the first few years of their 30s getting wasted, taking drugs and partying non-stop. This life suits Tyler (Shawkat) to a tee – she has escaped a mysterious family back in the States and somehow has a gorgeous townhouse in Dublin to live in while she spends her barista salary on fabulous vintage clothes and MDMA. However, Laura (Grainger) is finding the party life encroaching on her career as a writer, having written 10 pages of her debut novel in the past decade.
Things get even more muddled when Laura meets Jim (Fra Fee) – a talented pianist who gives up drinking as his romance with Laura blossoms. She is faced with leaving her old self behind – and that includes Tyler – to settle down and produce her novel, or continue on in her ways with her best friend by her side in a haze of cocaine and wine.
It’s not the most unique of tales, but Animals does a stellar job at showing female friendship in all its glory, and also the harsh reality of how one keeps a friend in the next phase of their live when the relationship was based on debauchery. Anybody struggling to progress to being a ‘grown up’ will empathise as Laura struggles to knuckle down and write while her pal texts her, informing her she’s got a glass of wine spare.
Grainger and Shawkat are totally believable as the devoted friends, with their chemistry undeniably being the selling point of Animals. Their interactions don’t seem forced in any way, and you’re truly rooting for them to shun boys and growing up for a life of fabulousness and hedonism.
I’m unsure as to why Animals was switched from Manchester, like the book, and it leads to some dodgy accents in the beginning. However, the backdrop of Dublin is gorgeous against the cast’s lives, and Irish actors Fra Fee and Dermot Murphy are both solid as the men vying for Laura’s affections.
But nobody really steals focus from Grainger and Shawkat, and I guess that’s the whole point. Animals is messy and confused at times – exactly how it should be.
Animals is in cinemas 2 August.
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