Strewth!
A couple of years back, the FX channel showed an Australian drama called Underbelly. It was a pretty graphic portrayal of Melbourne's real-life gangland wars, events which were indeed so recent as to render the show unbroadcastable in the state of Victoria for fear of it prejudicing trials which were still taking place.
Gruesome as some of the events it covered were, the tone of Underbelly was rather odd - light and comical in places, and shot in bright, welcoming colours. Pretty much Neighbours with guns and swearing, as the Guardian noted at the time. The effect, intentional or not, was to make these true events seem somewhat fantastical.
Animal Kingdom does not have this problem. David Michod's film (his name has an accent in it which I don't know how to add in Blogger - apols, mate) is a fictional but extremely down-and-dirty portrayal of the same Melbourne netherworld.
It also differs from Underbelly by focussing on one family rather than dealing with an entire gang-war history. Teenager J is forced to move in with his ne'er-do-well uncles and grandmother after his mother ODs on heroin, and is quickly drawn into their escalating feud with the police. As events get progressively more out of hand, Guy Pearce's good-guy detective attempts to win J over and the stage is set for a tug-of-war between what's good and proper and doing right by your rellies.
It's an extremely effective film, finding real drama in J's familial struggles and carefully not going too OTT with the bad stuff. The Australian accents help, giving what is a well-trodden genre a fresh spin for British ears, so used to hearing gangsters speaking in either Cockernee or Noo Yoik tones. The most disturbing scenes involve eldest uncle "Pope", whose somewhat unhinged mindset is exacerbated by his resemblance to Dr Leo Spaceman.
All awards for grotesquerie go to family matriarch Janine, however, an Oscar-nominated performance by Jacki Weaver. She looks and talks like the familiar middle-aged mum stereotype as seen so often in Neighbours or Home and Away (and Weaver probably has been in both), except that here she is the sweet but utterly deadly controlling influence on a whole clan of utter scumbags. Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth - you'll want to punch it in afterwards, though. Never has the "banality of evil" epithet been more apt.
Well worth a watch, sport.
Gruesome as some of the events it covered were, the tone of Underbelly was rather odd - light and comical in places, and shot in bright, welcoming colours. Pretty much Neighbours with guns and swearing, as the Guardian noted at the time. The effect, intentional or not, was to make these true events seem somewhat fantastical.
It also differs from Underbelly by focussing on one family rather than dealing with an entire gang-war history. Teenager J is forced to move in with his ne'er-do-well uncles and grandmother after his mother ODs on heroin, and is quickly drawn into their escalating feud with the police. As events get progressively more out of hand, Guy Pearce's good-guy detective attempts to win J over and the stage is set for a tug-of-war between what's good and proper and doing right by your rellies.
It's an extremely effective film, finding real drama in J's familial struggles and carefully not going too OTT with the bad stuff. The Australian accents help, giving what is a well-trodden genre a fresh spin for British ears, so used to hearing gangsters speaking in either Cockernee or Noo Yoik tones. The most disturbing scenes involve eldest uncle "Pope", whose somewhat unhinged mindset is exacerbated by his resemblance to Dr Leo Spaceman.
All awards for grotesquerie go to family matriarch Janine, however, an Oscar-nominated performance by Jacki Weaver. She looks and talks like the familiar middle-aged mum stereotype as seen so often in Neighbours or Home and Away (and Weaver probably has been in both), except that here she is the sweet but utterly deadly controlling influence on a whole clan of utter scumbags. Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth - you'll want to punch it in afterwards, though. Never has the "banality of evil" epithet been more apt.
Well worth a watch, sport.
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