Animals

Remember years ago when you be sitting down in front of the TV watching RTE2 at 8.30pm on a monday evening wondering how exactly Monica and Rachel could afford that fantastic apartment and all those cups of coffee despite both of them being in low paid work? Prepare for 109 minutes of that same feeling during Animals except this time you'll flat out hate the people onscreen because this Dublin based drama is the story of a pair of unapologetic gobshites.

Laura (Holliday Grainger) and Tyler (Alia Shawkat) are two intensely close friends living it up in Dublin. Both work in dead end jobs and both live to piss their money away on white wine and class A's. Tyler is blitzing the tail end of her 20's in a whirlwind of alcohol & Laura's been working on her novel for a decade and the news that her sister is pregnant knocks her into an existential crisis that sees her meet and become rapidly engaged to a pianist called Jim (Fra Fee). Her and Tyler's toxic relationship rapidly becomes strained as she spends more and more time with her new fella and her head gets even more muddled when a poet called Marty (Dermot Murphy) worms his way into her emotions too.

Looking at your phone to check the time during a movie is never a good sign is it. If you're enjoying a film you'll never find yourself doing it as you'll be wrapped up in whats happening in front of you. Numerous times during Animals I found myself checking the time and not because the film was bad, but because I hated the people I found myself watching. Entitled, spoiled little shites who'll happily trample over everyone and everything in the pursuit of some fun. Not once did Animals ever feel like the story of genuine people, more a jumble of cliches in the shape of people, doing this and that because it's what the story commanded. Letting the plot define the characters is never a good thing. It's impossible to empathise with them and it's hard to care about what they get up to.

It's annoying because it's a well made and very well acted film. Halliday (septic aside accent aside) and Shawkat are excellent in their parts. Fra Fee as Jim, looking uncannily like Jon Snow, is a fresh new Irish face to keep an eye out for and Dermot Murphy's Marty is the personification of an art scene Louis CK sleaze. It's just a pity their talents couldn't have been applied to characters more worthy of them. We don't want our leads to be perfect but jesus throw us some kind of bone, give us some hook to keep us interested. Emma Jane Unsworth's book on which this is based had the same character's but their story ended up in a far more believable place than here. Had this film had the courage to stick to the book we would have had a more satisfying and believable watch

Others will no doubt get more out of this than I did. Some of hits the spot, a pubic mishap in a busy pub, both Laura's scenes with her new niece, the always reliable Pat Shortt, but it's just not enough.