Jacqueline Castel, award-winning director and screenwriter, returned to the Sundance Film Festival to premiere a brand new tackle a traditional werewolf story in My Animal. The movie stars Bobbi Salvör Menuez as Heather, the redheaded social misfit whose animalistic transformation throughout a full moon retains her as a prisoner in her personal life. The screenplay, written by Jae Matthews, focuses on the human components of connection, sexuality, and freedom. Though these themes elevate this lopsided screenplay to a movie price watching, the constraints are exhausting to disregard. My Animal, regardless of all of the efforts from Castel’s route, is slowed down by its snail-like pacing and uneventful genre-blending.
Heather, a young person struggling in opposition to the constrictive forces in her small city life in Canada, longs to flee her stifling household dynamic. Her mom, Patti (Heidi von Palleske), is a longtime alcoholic whose situation impacts the whole household dynamic. Then, there’s the hockey group Heather longs to hitch however can not due to her gender. Given these components that contribute to her mundane albeit suffocating life, it is no surprise she’s drawn to the tantalizing and lovely determine skater Jonny (Amandla Stenberg). As their relationship blossoms, Heather should maintain her animalistic instincts at bay. But the nearer she will get to Jonny, the harder it’s for her to take action.
Castel’s tackle a traditional mythos is each alluring and underwhelming. The movie is at its greatest when it units itself as a teen romance, enabling the characters to develop and rework into unbiased younger adults. Heather, who lived a lonely life for thus lengthy, involves a sexual awakening upon her budding romance with Stenberg’s Jonny. Often conflicted together with her sense of self because of a situation she inherited from her father Henry (Stephen McHattie), she goes on to blossom right into a younger girl with new-found confidence, friendships, and alternative. These contextualized experiences humanize Heather to the purpose by which the werewolf story comes off as an after-thought and pointless to the story.
Even although her werewolf id is on the core of her isolation, Matthews’ screenplay presents restricted moments to look at this aspect of Heather save just a few instances by which she handcuffs herself to the mattress. It isn’t till the movie’s ending that an angered Heather permits herself to actually let unfastened and rework utterly. With such diminished alternative to visualise the opposite aspect to Heather, Castel’s function is usually hampered by the sluggish pacing resulting in a watching expertise that’s all anticipation and uncommon payout.
Despite a few of these restrictions, My Animal is a assured debut because of nice technical achievements. Dean Hurley’s sound design, particularly, presents an ominous ambiance that pairs nicely with Heather’s gradual liberation — it is akin to lastly letting the beast out of its cage. Bryn McCashin’s alluring cinematography additionally stands out, which accentuates the regular rigidity embedded inside every scene. These parts improve Castel’s imaginative and prescient, which facilities Heather and Jonny in their very own confined and steamy romantic world. But these remoted options are higher than the film as an entire. And the obvious imbalance shall be tough for viewers to disregard.