A FRACTURED FAMILY

Set in the 1980s and told simply, film examines a troubled childhood

When you’re 10 years old, your parents are the universe and vice versa. And for Manny, Joel and Jonah, growing up in upstate New York in the 1980s, that universe is a chaotic place, brimming with benign neglect. The feature debut of documentary filmmaker Jeremiah Zagar, We the Animals feels a bit like early David Gordon Green crossed with Terrence Malick, but with enough personal style to qualify as his own. The simple family tale is told through the eyes of the children, particularly Jonah (Evan Rosado), youngest (he just turned 10) and most sensitive of the brood.

The film opens on happy times with the parents (Sheila Vand, Raúl Castillo) only ever referred to as Ma and Paps, but it soon becomes clear that the couple is locked in a cycle of abuse.

“Emergency,” Paps tells the kids after one fight: “I had to take her to the dentist tonight.”

No one’s buying it, but no one knows what to say or do about it either. When Ma takes to her bed, the boys forage for food, and make pretend telephone calls with childish recreations

of reconciliation.

Zagar’s loose shooting style — often hand-held, and using actual film to mirror the analog decade of the setting — lets the story unfold at a languid, natural pace. The kids can be hellions, throwing rocks at passing cars and swearing at a woman who stops to berate them — but it’s all an act. They’re trying on various personas of adulthood, and it’s unclear which one will take. Paps thinks he knows. “We’re never gonna escape this,” he tells Ma in one of their more tender moments. “Not ever. Not us. Not them.” But I wouldn’t be so certain. Kids are resilient.

Jonah keeps a secret journal of scratchy drawing, trying to make sense of it all.

They’ll take what the universe throw at them, making it their own, and maybe making something more of it as well.