The Animal Kingdom (Le Regne Animal) Outstanding French Cinema (Maroochydore)

The Animal Kingdom Film Trailer HERE

DIRECTED BY: THOMAS CAILLEY

STARRING:  ROMAIN DURIS   PAUL KIRCHER  ADÈLE EXARCHOPOULO  TOM MERCIE  BILLIE BLAIN

 Drama, Thriller with an astonishing narrative. 

 FRANCE / 2023 / 128 MINS / M

The most nominated film at the French Oscars. 12 nominations and 5 wins for this extraordinary film. One of the best examples of innovative French Film making with a sympathetic treatment Hollywood would get all wrong. There will be a U.S. version of this film for sure --it's too amazing for there not to be.  

It's essentially a family drama with tension aplenty and works as one, but with a storyline twist that may make some people think, ugh, not for me. Think again. 

Romain Duris (Eiffel, The Three Musketeers)  and Paul Kircher (Winter Boy)  play François and Émile, a father and son living in the not-so-distant-future when the planet is afflicted with a new crisis: some people are mutating into animals. Yet,  there's no major covid like panic.  Life goes on. 

One of the casualties of this affliction is François’s wife and Émile’s mother.  They relocate to a rural property to live near one of the new institutions designed to indefinitely house the human/animal hybrids, including their wife and mother until a cure can be found.  In the forest surrounding them,  are some of the creatures who have escaped capture. 

Emile is drawn closer to them as mystery, paranoia and fear grows about what will happen to everyone should a cure not be found. At the same time he has to 

 to settle into a new school and deal with an emerging relationship in  a world where the forces of nature are changing forever. His own as well. 

Somehow filmmaker Thomas Cailley has pulled together all the threads here; family drama, coming of age, thriller, drama, an off beat and astonishing story line  into a simply extraortdinary film.

Oh and Adele Exarchpoulos is once again on screen gold as local police office drawn into and Francois and Emile's  lives. 

Romain Duris scored a Best Actor nomination at the French Oscars for his role here and is extarordinary as the Father and Husband who is in fear of losing everything and at the same time wanting to protect the people he loves as others demand their extinction.  

Official Selection:  Cannes Film Festival 

Nominated for 12 French Oscars. 

Won 6. 

"Original and striking." The Hollywood Reporter 

" Sets itself up as a brooding thriller, but gradually shifts gear to become more poetic and tender."  Screen Daily

"Gripping." Collider 

"A spellbinding, magic realist fable. Remarkable." Deadline

"Rippling with visual invention." Screen Daily