The Animal Project

Another wonderful, heartfelt piece of work from a true maverick independent filmmaker.

Great performances across the board, and lots of sweet surprises throughout.

I was particularly effected by young Jacob Switzer's performance as Sam, and his relationship with his father (played by Aaron Poole) felt totally genuine.

I appreciate how the filmmaker leaves just enough questions unanswered to keep the audience engaged without leaving everyone feeling lost.

For my money, there just aren't enough films being made nowadays with this kind of spirit.

This will so just so so so lovely. I laughed, I cried, sometimes during the same scene. The beauty of the ensemble cast is that most everyone will find someone who they can relate to. All the different "animals" have their own set of unique problems and obstacles that they need to overcome. I was concerned that the scenes in costume would be a drag because you literally can't see any of the actors' faces, but I was completely wrong. The scenes in the mascot costumes were actually some of the funniest and most heartwarming in the film.

I couldn't recommend this film more. It's an hour and a half of your life very very well spent.

What an extraordinarily fun, poignant and thoughtful work of art. Beautiful writing, photography, editing, sound design, music and (of course) costumes. Also, best ensemble cast in any English Canadian film, ever. Veninger is continuing to grow and fulfill her potential as an indie filmmaker by leaps and bounds on every project. Ironically, with this film she does it by staying close to home and telling a story about people in the city she knows best. Which leads to one of the most compellingly human depictions I think has been made of Toronto – in any art form. Anybody would be lucky to make a film like this once in their career... but I wouldn't be surprised if Veninger and her collaborators on this film end up making it a habit.

A film to watch, and watch again.

I was lucky enough to see the World Premier of "The Animal Project" last night at the Toronto International Film Festival and I loved it. It was beautifully written, directed and acted. Ingrid Veninger at her finest. The film was honest, heart breaking and funny. Personally, I found the relationship between Leo (Aaron Poole) and Sam (Jacob Switzer) to be real and moving. Also really fascinating was the Q & A after the film and getting to hear about Ingrid Veninger's unconventional creative process. Her purity of intent really shines through in this project and in the end she has created a film with heart and soul.

"The Animal Project" stars Aaron Poole as Leo, a thirty-something acting teacher, who is way too hippie-like in nature to put together coherent thoughts, although I'm sure he thinks he does. He instructs six wannabe actors on how to act, and they are just as insufferable as he is with their pretentious techniques and ideas on how to be successful in life.

The Animal Project is an idea that Leo has, that if actors dress up in animal mascot suits, they can then give hugs out to people on the street. (Grown adult men cannot do this without going to jail, hence the need for the animal costumes). It would have been interesting to see where they take this animal project idea, except Leo and the actors were struggling with "what does it all mean, man," and whatever idea or questions the filmmakers wanted to put out there were lost as I have no clue what the point of any of this was.

The opening scene was fairly well constructed. Leo was asking questions to each of the actors and filming their responses. And each was cut during the opening credits, so we just got a flash of what each of these people were like. But we also got the nagging suspicion that they were acting. After all, they are actors. But then to give further introduction to each of the actors, we got very bleak, slow introductory scenes of random, meaningless moments in their life. In fact, the point could very well be, that as struggling to become actors they feel like they are living meaningless lives and losing themselves in the process. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think that idea can carry a slow, bare film about pretentious actors.

The second main theme is Leo's struggle to raise his son. Leo struggles with a lot of things; he probably can't even put a pair of pants on, but that would belong in a comedy, which this is not. The film also loses a lot of interest before we even get to the father- son drama.

"The Animal Project" is a slow, austere drama trying to string together some semblance of meaning to people who either don't have much meaning or deserve to be understood. Even if there was a point to the animal project or the father-son drama, it was lost in a lack of interest.