David Michod - Welcome to 'Animal Kingdom'

The expression "raised by wolves" never carried more disturbing implications than in Animal Kingdom, first-time director David Michod's creepy fairytale about the precarious misadventures of an Australian teen who falls into the clutches of a gang of bank robbers who happen to be his own kin.

Catatonically watching a TV game show, Joshua "J" Cody is waiting for paramedics to claim the body of his mom, dead from a heroin overdose. Josh calls the only number he has, and is connected to his estranged grandma, the bubbly Janine Cody (Jacki Weaver), who calls everyone "Sweetie," has a disturbing propensity for kissing her adult male sons flush on the mouth, and bears the bizarre nickname "Grandma Smurf," after an 80s cult show about an incestuous clan of cartoon characters.

Josh learns to respect his uncles' hairpin-trigger tempers. Grandma Smurf's moody, tattooed, drug-taking boys are feeling the pressure of having an unmarked Melbourne Police squad car parked just outside. Word on the street is that members of the Armed Robbery Division mean to assassinate gang member Barry Brown (Joel Edgerton). When Brown is indeed murdered by the cops in a supermarket parking lot, all bets are off. The family leader, Andrew "Pope" Cody (Ben Mendelsohn), means to seek an eye for an eye.

The heat is on following the Cody ambush of two patrol cops, and we meet another avuncular figure looking to give Josh some life lessons. Enter police inspector Nathan Leckie, another low-key tour de force from Guy Pearce, who cut his teeth playing a troubled cop under fire in LA Confidential.

Wanting the boy to turn state's evidence against his family and feeling fatherly towards this innocent trapped in a lion's den, Inspector Leckie tells Josh about the ways of murderous primates, and hides him in a witness protection program.

Michod shows how outlaw clans can appeal to an orphan. But Josh realizes he'd better run for his life. Setting his tale in the meltdown era of a Melbourne Police Department whose members are stepping way outside the law to suppress crime, Michod shows how the cops turn into an even more insidious crime family. Leckie sees his authority and hold on Josh dissolve under the onslaught of felons with and without badges.

In a brilliant ensemble, a few really shine. Newcomer James Frechville is sublime as compromised innocent Josh. He combines a soft core with the adult body of a welterweight boxer, a kid who can probably look after himself if he can just figure out who his real opponent is. Ben Mendelsohn is scary good as a mood-shifting paranoid, his crazed attempts to protect his turf producing an ever-expanding body count. Jacki Weaver provides the most vibrantly compromised portrait of a diabolical mob mom since Nancy Marchand's vengeful Mama Soprano.

Michod employs vividly drawn if often repellent characters to create an intimate drama that achieves the scope and resonance of a modern epic. It's taken him quite a while to put his crime-family Smurfs up on the big screen. He shared the story with me during a Hotel Prescott chat in June.

David Lamble: I loved where Pope is needling his younger brother about the gay thing - the younger brother is a funny odd guy out. He's like Josh, wondering why he's there.

David Michod: Pope's a sick puppy, and his way into his youngest brother, in this brutally heterosexual world they live in, is to challenge Darren's sexuality. It's the basest form of goading, and very quickly he'll have Darren as putty in his hands.

David Lamble: Josh is the ultimate passive protagonist. He's a man on the run, and it's only at the very end that something snaps.

David Michod: Passivity is incredibly common in kids at that age. They're not fully emotionally developed, and that manifests itself in this mumbling passivity, but what's developing is a rich, bubbling inner life that hasn't found a way to express itself yet. I look at his performance, and there's so much detail, but it's detail on that teenage level. He needed an expressive range because that range pops out at very particular moments.

David Lamble: He's got the frame of a boxer - he looks like someone who's not overly aggressive, but who can take care of himself when the bell rings, and that turns out to be the case.

David Michod: I had imagined the character more like a kid, smaller and slighter. James is six-foot-two, and even though he's only 17, there's something about that gangly man-child quality that I liked. Suddenly the movie felt more plausible, because he looks like he should be able to mix it up with these guys.

David Lamble: Discuss "Grandma Smurf."

David Michod: Jacki Weaver is a national treasure. She's been around since the renaissance of Australian film in the 70s, Picnic at Hanging Rock. She's had a number of famous marriages and divorces, but she's such a delightful person. I wanted that character to be packaged - given her cold pragmatism - in that delightful, diminutive thing that is Jacki Weaver.

"Are you queer?"

Michod uses images of a lion pride in the film's opening credits to indicate just how far down the evolutionary food-chain we've slipped observing the Cody family psychodramas. For queer filmgoers, a clear indication of what a nasty piece of work Pope can be is the hoodlum's baiting of his younger brother Darren (Luke Ford), who desperately wants to avoid helping Pope kill cops as retribution for Brown's death. The brother-on-brother verbal beatdown begins as Pope observes the fastidiously dressed Darren mixing himself a drink in the family's rumpus room.

"Where did you get that suit?"

"It's a suit."

"It looks gay. Are you gay?"

"Fuck off!"

"Are you queer? It's a serious question. I don't care if you're gay or you're not gay. So what if you are, mate, I just want you to tell me about it. Making yourself a drink?"
"Yep."

"What is it?"

"It's a Bourbon and Coke."

"Bourbon and Coke's not a very gay drink. Look, man, if you're gay and you want to make yourself a gay drink, just go ahead and make yourself a gay drink. It just kills me to see you living a lie!"
'
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Watch the trailer for Animal Kingdom:

Like the Sopranos?

The heat is on following the Cody ambush of two patrol cops, and we meet another avuncular figure looking to give Josh some life lessons. Enter police inspector Nathan Leckie, another low-key tour de force from Guy Pearce, who cut his teeth playing a troubled cop under fire in LA Confidential.

Wanting the boy to turn state's evidence against his family and feeling fatherly towards this innocent trapped in a lion's den, Inspector Leckie tells Josh about the ways of murderous primates, and hides him in a witness protection program.

Michod shows how outlaw clans can appeal to an orphan. But Josh realizes he'd better run for his life. Setting his tale in the meltdown era of a Melbourne Police Department whose members are stepping way outside the law to suppress crime, Michod shows how the cops turn into an even more insidious crime family. Leckie sees his authority and hold on Josh dissolve under the onslaught of felons with and without badges.

In a brilliant ensemble, a few really shine. Newcomer James Frechville is sublime as compromised innocent Josh. He combines a soft core with the adult body of a welterweight boxer, a kid who can probably look after himself if he can just figure out who his real opponent is. Ben Mendelsohn is scary good as a mood-shifting paranoid, his crazed attempts to protect his turf producing an ever-expanding body count. Jacki Weaver provides the most vibrantly compromised portrait of a diabolical mob mom since Nancy Marchand's vengeful Mama Soprano.

Michod employs vividly drawn if often repellent characters to create an intimate drama that achieves the scope and resonance of a modern epic. It's taken him quite a while to put his crime-family Smurfs up on the big screen. He shared the story with me during a Hotel Prescott chat in June.

David Lamble: I loved where Pope is needling his younger brother about the gay thing - the younger brother is a funny odd guy out. He's like Josh, wondering why he's there.

David Michod: Pope's a sick puppy, and his way into his youngest brother, in this brutally heterosexual world they live in, is to challenge Darren's sexuality. It's the basest form of goading, and very quickly he'll have Darren as putty in his hands.

David Lamble: Josh is the ultimate passive protagonist. He's a man on the run, and it's only at the very end that something snaps.

David Michod: Passivity is incredibly common in kids at that age. They're not fully emotionally developed, and that manifests itself in this mumbling passivity, but what's developing is a rich, bubbling inner life that hasn't found a way to express itself yet. I look at his performance, and there's so much detail, but it's detail on that teenage level. He needed an expressive range because that range pops out at very particular moments.

David Lamble: He's got the frame of a boxer - he looks like someone who's not overly aggressive, but who can take care of himself when the bell rings, and that turns out to be the case.

David Michod: I had imagined the character more like a kid, smaller and slighter. James is six-foot-two, and even though he's only 17, there's something about that gangly man-child quality that I liked. Suddenly the movie felt more plausible, because he looks like he should be able to mix it up with these guys.

David Lamble: Discuss "Grandma Smurf."

David Michod: Jacki Weaver is a national treasure. She's been around since the renaissance of Australian film in the 70s, Picnic at Hanging Rock. She's had a number of famous marriages and divorces, but she's such a delightful person. I wanted that character to be packaged - given her cold pragmatism - in that delightful, diminutive thing that is Jacki Weaver.

Animal Kingdom is playing in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, San Diego and Chicago. Check the .

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