Film Review: We The Animals Shows How Aware Children Are
A boy needs his father. A boy needs his mother. But what happens to the boy’s needs when his parents are not meeting the needs of each other? As sad it is, children can caught up in their parents’ relationships, and even be used as a pawn. We The Animals is a brutal but vivid look into how the instability of a marriage can affect the stability of its children.
Evan Rosado plays Jonah, and becomes the heart of the film. Through this boy’s eyes we see how innocence views and believes the false justifications of cruelty. His Paps (Raul Castillo) rapes and beats his Ma (Sheila Vand), but then takes the family out for a swim or camping. Raul Castillo is charm and a brute as Paps, and becomes an emblem at how good and evil can live in one man, which perplexes his children.How does a young boy reconcile his “good father” is also a horrible husband? Yet, his mother is not absolved in molding Jonah’s turmoil.
Sheila Vand is heartbreaking as Ma. She is drowning in her own life, and her son Jonah, as the one closest to her, literally envisions himself going underwater. He continuously dreams of his house being flooded, and it is not by chance that these visions happen after traumatic instance. As he begins to draw images of violence and sex, which is normal for kids in abusive homes, these drawings come to life as his feelings narrate the film. While his Ma, too, is a victim, her own confusion and fear makes her confide in her children as if they are her friends and equals, but this equality is selective. She asks her children adult questions like, whether they should leave their father, but then if they do not eat their soup or talk back, they get scolded like their age.
While Rosado’s Jonah becomes a pillar for sensitivity and serious analysis of a child’s psychology in a violent homes, his brothers Joel (Josiah Gabriel) and Manny (Isaiah Kristian) feel even more tragic. These boys solidify that child actors can steal scenes and give their hearts as much as adult ones. They provide instance of pain that is so gut-wrenching, audiences will want to run out and save every child in an horrid situation. Unfortunately, they descend from typical, boy rebellions into crimes, drugs, and self-destructive ways. As you watch their innocence become a rage that they cannot understand, convey, or properly place towards their parents, you get this gnawing feeling that this is how wounded boys become wounding men.
Directed by Jeremiah Zagar, and written by him and Daniel Kitrosser, We The Animals displays how human savagery builds a home, and how no amount of love can shade growing darkness. Why? Because light can go through darkness, but if you do not acknowledge that there is darkness at all, then you will not see it enter. This family loves each other, but wounds each other too much and too casually for that love to thrive and heal them. While we think horribleness is epic and in your face, when it starts to get “in your face” everyday, it becomes numbingly routine. Luckily, We The Animals’ has an exceptional cast to show how toxicity becomes normalcy. We The Animals Comes Out In Theater on August 17.
