★ 9 / 10
It requires patience, because in the beginning many
Alain E
It requires patience, because in the beginning many of the events appear unexplainable. Then, by the time we reach the third chapter of this complex story…
It requires patience, because in the beginning many of the events appear unexplainable. Then, by the time we reach the third chapter of this complex story everything falls in place. Unfortunately the conclusion is that humans yearn for love, sex and money in every possible wrong way inflicting carnage right and left. On Tubi.
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★ 10 / 10
Fiendishly clever, with a plot that Hitchcock wud
Ronald H
Fiendishly clever, with a plot that Hitchcock wud have loved. This film requires patience from the viewer, as the puzzle pieces slowly fall into place over its…
Fiendishly clever, with a plot that Hitchcock wud have loved. This film requires patience from the viewer, as the puzzle pieces slowly fall into place over its two hour running time. When it all finally comes together, it packs a punch.
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★ 7 / 10
I should've watched this one sooner. Then again
Kevin L
I should've watched this one sooner. Then again, I would'nt have had the great pleasure of seeing it tonight. What an impressive piece of writing and directing…
I should've watched this one sooner. Then again, I would'nt have had the great pleasure of seeing it tonight. What an impressive piece of writing and directing by Dominik Moll. The screenplay by Moll, along with Gilles Marchand and Colin Neil, is an intricate tightrope to walk, with its convoluted connections of characters, time, and actions. It's a film about the dangers of deception and infidelities, of the desperation that poverty and desires can push us into, and those who are hurt in the crossfire.
Moll keeps things tight and flowing with an incredibly deft skill in pacing and well-realized characters . We come to know each of the main figures just well enough that we feel the authenticity of their emotional reactions and can appreciate the actions they take out of their desperate straits; out their perception of those they are using or those they desire most. But no one is safe in "Only the Animals". The victims and the victimizers are hurting, but their efforts to relieve that pain are misguided, or outright criminal. But sense when does clouded judgement or impulsive emotional reaction lead us to rational, mature actions?
The acting is superior in general. Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Laure Calamu. Denis Menochet, and Nadia Tereszkiewic are especially good. And Damien Bonnard is convincing as a man in his own arrested development; frozen in a static state of loss and isolation.
The Robbe-Grillet-esque manner in which the characters are so intertwined like some network of actions and reactions, continually surprises and explains when/why/how what we've seen already went down. One choice, one sudden impulse, one calculated act triggers another, with unfortunate results and no happy resolutions.
Damn nice work, Moll, writers, and cast. 3.8 stars
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Seed please, thanks