Sundance: In Emma Jane Unsworth’s boozy and biting adaptation of her own novel, the duo find that growing up is hard, especially if you’ve resisted it for entire years.
There’s a delightful gag in the final act of Jamie Travis’ 2012 comedy “For a Good Time, Call” — incidentally, a former Sundance entry — in which the leading ladies profess their platonic affection for each other in ways most closely associated with romantic proclamations. Sophie Hyde’s “Animals” takes that idea and slingshots it a decade into the future, centering her film around the seemingly unbreakable bond between Laura (Holliday Grainger) and Tyler (Alia Shawkat), best friends who probably made similar promises in the early days of their own friendship. The film even opens with Laura lovingly reciting the story of how they first met, a tale that’s both sweet and indicative of the pains to come.
Based on Emma Jane Unsworth’s novel of the same name — the novelist has also penned the screenplay, and her affection for her characters shows — “Animals” picks up ten years into Laura and Tyler’s friendship, as the rest of the world changes around them and they, well, don’t. Boozy and obligation-free, Laura and Tyler have entered their thirties much as they spent their twenties (read: drunk), and the realization that the world is passing them by impacts the pair in very different ways.
