SUNDANCE 2023 | Movie Review: "My Animal" Simmers but Doesn't Snarl
5/12 ForReel Score | 2/5 Stars
Canada is a country defined by its vast expanses of harsh, untamed terrain, and by those yawning potentials for savagery and escape. It is only natural that the country’s filmmakers look to the unknowns of the land’s dark forests and visualize the creatures—and creature features—that might be bred within.
My Animal, which had its recent premier at Sundance, is the latest of these uniquely Canadian, uniquely desolate-feeling features. Directed by Jacqueline Castel and written by Boy Harsher mastermind Jae Matthews, it culls from the frost bitten forests of Ontario a modest werewolf mythology. That said, don’t go into this film expecting fearsome transformations, or blood, guts, and torn flesh. Much like its main character Heather must do in order maintain her semblance of an ordinary life, My Animal relegates its lycanthropic elements to the background, concerning itself instead with domestic, coming-of-age drama—albeit, drama drenched in thick and moody atmospherics.
Image courtesy of Sundance Institute
Bobbi Salvör Menuez plays Heather, the listless eldest daughter in a family of five who works at her local ice rink’s concession stand where she develops eyes for a new girl figure skater in town, Jonny (Amandla Stenberg). She is fully “out” to her family as a werewolf—her parents assure she is shackled to her bed when a full moon comes about—but her burgeoning sexual identity has not yet been outed (or, at least, not yet accepted). Heather must also reckon with her alcoholic, mentally disturbed mother, as well as the pervading theme of male favouritism found at home—Heather has twin brothers who are both family hockey stars—and around the hockey-obsessed town.
Content to eschew the rhythms of the usual monster film, Castel shapes her film not with steady tension building, but with closely observed moments of angst and yearning. Before there are ever scenes geared to frighten, there is melodrama, scenes of awkwardly articulated intentions and scenes of the resulting anger and confusion. Menuez and Stenberg’s flirtings are more cat-like and coquettish than you would expect in a werewolf film, granted, but their chemistry reads as palpable, and they’re stirring mains to behold.
Unfortunately, My Animal fails its on-screen talent with it’s thin writing, which is too sparing with it’s instances of substance to keep you properly invested. The story also lacks forward momentum, and is often too content to be carried along by the film’s stylistic embellishments. These elements—the chilly production design, blood-red colour palette, and creeping, synth-heavy score from Dean Hurley—are undoubtedly cool, and they’re ideal background dressing at a Halloween party, but they do not make for a hang-on-every-word viewing experience. That said, Castel has done extensive directing work on music videos in the past, so it’s possible that visuals and score were always at the fore of her vision.
By emphasizing aesthetics, though, Castel ignores the potent emotional currents that her actors work to channel and her script tries to suggest. Ultimately, this means the film reads as a missed opportunity, as creature feature that whimpers instead of growls. Its visual flairs and its attempt at re-contextualizing the lesbian drama should certainly be commended, but further story development was sorely needed in the end, as was a greater budget. Indeed, it seems the search for Canada’s next Ginger Snaps will have to continue.