ALL THE LITTLE ANIMALS
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Lions Gate Films Director: Jeremy Thomas Writer: Eski Thomas, novel by Walker Hamilton Cast: Christian Bale, Daniel ali, John Hurt
A few blocks from where I live is a farmers' market. Growers come in from upstate New York twice a week, and on Saturday morning one such family parks a van housing a couple of goats, a pig, and a rabbit. This family makes money on the deal by situating a collection box outside the truck with a sign, "If you want us to continue coming here with the animals, please contribute." The little kids love to come up to the cage and pet the goats and the pig. One six- year-old asked the farmer about the man's "pets," but was told that only the rabbit was for companionship. The others would "go to market." The kid seemed to accept that answer without asking further.
Now, I wish that little boy and others like him could see "All the Little Animals," a poignant, sometimes tense and violent fable about a 24-year-old emotionally-challenged man living in London with his abusive stepfather. Here is a fellow who had never left home since he was somewhat brain-damaged in an auto accident years back but who decides in a moment of great anxiety to flee from his London home to the wholly unfamiliar Cornwall countryside. He finds his identity there while experiencing one particularly strained encounter of life-or-death proportions. The movie is not a great one but is an appropriate choice for its presumed target of little ones as it more or less follows the pattern of classic fairy tales.
In this fable, Bobby (Christian Bale), having experienced the death of his beloved mom, is pressured by his sinister stepfather De Winter (Daniel ali) to sign over his mother's large London department store on pain of being committed for life to a hospital for the disturbed. Bobby sneaks out of the house, hitches a ride to Cornwall, and bonds with a people-hating hermit, Mr. Summers (John Hurt). Summers, who burns with fury at automobile drivers because their speeding vehicles kill scores of road animals daily, believes that all animals have an equal right to life as people- -including mice, rats, roaches and moths. Financially independent, Summers makes a career of giving proper burials to the hapless creatures who litter the highways but don't go anywhere.
The chemistry between Bale and Summers is credible enough. They are two of a kind, both products of an abusive society, with Summers a natural mentor for the unhappy young man who had been patronized at best for most of us 24 years. John Hurt, whose piquant role as a stodgy British writer in "Love and Death on Long Island" should have earned him an Oscar, is made up to look ten years older and who displays the gruff exterior so unknown to the love-sick Giles De'Ath in the remarkable 1997 movie. Jeremy Thomas's direction is particularly reliable in the depiction of De Winter, who never raises his voice, who listens attentively and does not lecture, but who in the final analysis is bent on murder for its own sake.
I'd compare the trajectory of "All the Little Animals" to that of "The Wizard of Oz," in which Bobby (substituting for Dorothy) winds up in Cornwall (substituting for Oz) after fleeing his stepdad (the Wicked Witch of the West) and is mentored by a flawed but well-meaning recluse (the Wizard). Very young children might be disturbed by the scenes of violence and tension (one person's neck is slit on screen, and gravesites are being prepared graphically). If you can allow for one irrational and unbelievable scene involving Bobby and Summers' trip to London, you're left with a decent, small- scale movie, perhaps more suitable for video than the large screen.
Not Rated. Running Time: 112 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews