We the Animals

A gay coming-of-age tale told in impressionistic style, Jeremiah Zagar’s adaptation of Justin Torres’s autobiographical 2011 novel is both visually arresting and impressively acted, especially by the leads. Jonah (Evan Rosado) is the youngest of the three sons of a fractious couple living in upstate New York. Paps (Raúl Castillo) is a loving but irresponsible father. Occasionally rough with Jonah, he is even more so with his wife (Sheila Vand), who nonetheless remains devoted. Jonah’s constant companions are his older siblings Manny (Isaiah Kristian) and Joel (Josiah Gabriel), as they roam the woods and cavort together in bed to keep warm. Much of the narrative consists of fraught domestic incidents, but still there is an idyllic cast to the proceedings, accentuated by the periodic insertion of animated sequences that represent drawings Jonah scribbles obsessively in notebooks, adding to the lyrical feel of the rich cinematography capturing lustrous fields, lakes, and dew-drenched ground. The story ventures outside the home when the boys encounter an elderly neighbor who introduces them to his grandson, a shaggy-haired teen who shows them his sexually-explicit videos. While his older brothers react with juvenile giggles, the images awaken different longings in Jonah, ultimately taking the film into the realm of surrealism, or perhaps more accurately magic realism, as Jonah figuratively leaves his family. We the Animals is undeniably precious and artsy, but even though the film is more notable for texture than plot, it is still a gauzily affecting portrait of childhood that is at once dreamlike and nightmarish. Recommended. (F. Swietek)