All the Little Animals

First, I want to say that- if you are by any chance the director or writer or producer or anyone who worked on this film, please contact me for a job working with you, I want to work in film and this is a prime example of what I love to see at the cinema. I was in luck that, for the Palm Beach Film Festival, one of the films was cancelled and "All the Little Animals" was substituted. I have always loved Christian Bale's acting, and he is really great in this one- but the entire film is beautiful and captivating. The cinematography is gorgeous, from the streets of London to the forest where much of the film takes place- I especially loved a castle resting magically on a hilltop and dreamlike sequences where Bale's character is floating down a river holding a fox. This is indeed a film about little animals- mainly ones that are found dead on the street. This is a risky film in that it tries to balance fantasy and adventure with true horror (I guess that qualifies it for the "classic" fantasy genre of story books in which the endings were not always happy and the events were sometimes brutal)- making it very questionable for small children. I have rarely been so shaken by suspense at the movies as I was toward the awesomely climactic final scenes here. There is a human villain in this film who is so outrageously, perversely evil that he will come off as a joke for those who are not scared to death by him. I was. John Hurt is quite wonderful too, as an old hermit who befriends Bale. I do not want to spoil the plot- but I will say that it involves many a dead animal- and the moral theme that animals are as beautiful, if not more, than people (from the giant beasts down to microscopic ones). I got the feeling half way through this film that the late Jim Henson would have loved this - it is not unlike the "Storyteller" films that he directed for television in the late 80s, in which John Hurt played the narrator. In fact, the Hurt character is quite similar to the one he played in those as well. Here is a film that is great to look at, terrifically acted and written, and very moral. It is the best film I have seen yet this year.

A mentally slow boy is threatened to sign his dead mother's store to his completely evil stepfather. Afraid of his stepfather he runs away from home and meets an old hermit who believes that all animals and life is of great importance. He spends his days cleaning up the roadkill on the road and giving the dead animals proper burial. The young boy decides to help the old man and is allowed to live with the old man, but is afraid that the stepfather won't stop looking for him until he gets the store. A very unusual and different story. I really liked it. The superb acting by the entire cast also helps make this a memorable little flick. Daniel Benzali makes a truly frightening stepfather. **1/2 out of ****

It seems that most child actors don't transition well as they mature. They either end up with childish physical features or an acting style that suffers from an inability to evolve past the primitive roles they had in their youth. Then there's Christian Bale. From Empire of the Sun to American Psycho he has displayed a competent transition into adulthood and has made a fan out of me. And unlike female fans, guys who like Christian Bale, nine times out of ten, are not transfixed on the shower scene in AP.

All the Little Animals is yet another competent performance, and not only from Christian, but for the impeccable John Hurt and the terrifying Daniel Benzali. Christian Bale plays Bobby Platt, a twenty-four year old man child. He tells us that when he was younger he was hit by a car and has never been the same since. Bobby is very emotionally fragile and slightly simple minded, though not to the degree of a virtual on screen degenerate. This is the key to his performance. Most actors playing the role of the mentally handicapped overplay the affliction thus making their characters completely incapable of functioning in society, a la Rainman. Christian's Bobby Platt is 95% normal, like any other person, but when stressed he starts to cry, more like a 10 year old child than a 24 year old man. Coupled with the fact that he is relatively simple and not capable of expressing himself as well as he otherwise would, he ends up being victimized by his step father (played perfectly by Daniel Benzali), whom Bobby refers to as "the Fat." Benzali's character is a sadist who suffocates Bobby's pet mouse in order to get Bobby to sign legal documents which Bobby is clearly not capable of understanding. Bobby has enough intelligence to refuse to sign anything and out of fear of the Fat's threat that he will be institutionalized he runs away from home.

Bobby eventually comes across Mr. Sommers (John Hurt) who is an eccentric recluse who goes around Englands small country roads burying animals that have been crushed by motorists. Bobby begs Mr. Sommers to let him live with him and Mr. Sommers reluctantly agrees.

As the story unfolds, Bobby becomes comfortable enough with Mr. Sommers to reveal his secret (that he has run away) and Mr. Sommers likewise tells him of his own, strangely similar past which I will not reveal. Realizing that running away from the Fat is not a solution to Bobby's problems, Mr. Sommers convinces Bobby to return to the Fat, sign the legal documents and then live with Mr. Sommers without any more fear of his stepfather. However, Mr. Sommers is a bit naive about dealing with the Fat who reveals in the last 20 minutes of film just why he may very well be one of the most evil stepfathers of all time.

The ending is unfortunately predictable and unnecessarily long. Also, far too much of the film focuses on Mr. Sommers curious "work" of burying road kill. This would not be so bad had there been more of a story line. Also, this film propounds a simplistic moral message about life being precious. Yet the ending completely undermines this moral absolute.

This film is plot driven, and not a character study, and therefore the good performances are not enough to make this film worthy of greater praise. If not for the powerful acting this film would be merely mediocre.

ALL THE LITTLE ANIMALS

Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (2.35 Research)

Sound format: Dolby Digital

Until it takes a darker turn during its latter stages, there's a quiet dignity at the heart of this unusual drama, the directorial debut of producer Jeremy Thomas, based on a novel by Walker Hamilton. Christian Bale - a long way from EMPIRE OF THE SUN and two years from American PSYCHO - plays a mentally impaired young man who runs away from his creepy stepfather (Daniel Benzali) in the wake of his mother's death and ends up in Cornwall, where he befriends an eccentric hermit (John Hurt) whose fondness for animals strikes a healing chord within Bale's damaged psyche. Together, they set out to bury the dead creatures they find around their ramshackle home in the forest, many of them killed by traffic on lonely country roads.

Characterized by its magical performances (Bale is utterly convincing as the 10 year old boy trapped in a 25 year old's body) and eye-popping, panoramic vistas of the English landscape, the film offers a gentle reminder of mankind's place in the natural scheme of things, though Thomas makes his point without stooping to preachiness or obvious metaphors. In an amusing turnabout from standard Hollywood practices, this UK-lensed film features an American actor (Benzali) playing a Brit villain, the catalyst for a late-breaking plot development which some may find overly melodramatic. By turns humane, frightening and beautiful, this isn't a movie for all tastes, but adventurous viewers will be rewarded for their patience. A possible cult in the making.

My son and I really liked this film. If you are into shoot 'em up, no thinking or feeling required movies, then this one is not for you. For those who like animals and like to see the little guy win once in awhile, this is a great film. The stepfather, DeWinter, is a typical "nothing matters but money" type person and his unfortunate stepson, Bobby, gets caught in the line of his ruthless fire. As fate would have it, Bobby meets an eccentric and oddly lovable old fellow, Mr. Summers, who is into giving the poor creatures who have been flattened on the road a decent burial and a little compassion for what their little life once was. I know in this steam roller over everything that isn't human world that we live in, a lot of people aren't concerned in the slightest with what befalls those who are not so fortunate as them, particularly when it's a non-human unfortunate. But I found it very refreshing that someone took the time to write a book and do a film about the "underdogs" of life on this planet. I found myself cheering Bobby on when he finally finds his backbone and deals with his stepfather appropriately. For those who love animals and maybe even detest the cruelty that some people just feel they have to exhibit towards the helpless, this is a one in a million movie where the little guys win.