Hard-luck tale shares beauty, heartbreak
Another coming-of-age, hardluck story indie film, Jeremiah Zagar’s “We the Animals” has moments of lyric beauty, some of them animated, capturing the joys, mysteries and heartbreak of a childhood shared by three young brothers of Puerto RicanAmerican descent. But the documentary-like, upstate-New-Yorkset film, based on the 2011 novel by Justin Torres, never fully transcends its poverty porn, miserabilist roots.
In the end, you grow weary of the everything-that-can-gowrong-does-go-wrong plot line, and while the boys hired to act in the film are quite good as the brothers, the adult characters are not as interesting, and the constant whiplashing from love and affection to arguments and physical violence becomes a drag.
As Paps, the volatile blue-collar father, Raul Castillo works hard to make you grow fond of the family patriarch. But his thoughtless, abusive and self-destructive behavior ultimately makes that impossible. As the more appealing, young factory-worker mother known only as Ma, Sheila Vand (“A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”) is easier to relate to. But she, too, loses your interest as you wonder what she sees in this loser husband.
The film’s most appealing character is the stand-in for the book’s author, Jonah (Evan Rosado), the youngest brother, who keeps a journal at night under the bed he shares with his brothers, writing and drawing with a flashlight. These drawings often depict the violence in the family and are animated by the filmmakers. Music by Nick Zammuto and illustrations by Mark Samsonovich add to the film’s mystery and beauty.
Jonah’s visions of flying and finally soaring away from the world of his childhood are magical, but not magical enough to make me eager to see this film again.
(“We the Animals” contains profanity, violence, brief nudity and porn images on a TV screen.)