We the Animals

A town in upstate New York. Three brothers move almost as a single creature: they run together, eat together, hide together. Their mother is white, their father Puerto Rican, and they married very young; there is violence between them, separation and return. The youngest, Jonah, keeps a notebook under the bed at night and draws. The other two resemble their father. Jonah does not. Jeremiah Zagar directs in his first fiction film, from Justin Torres's novel. The director comes from documentary and it shows. It was shot on 16mm; the camera is at the children's level and most scenes are left open to improvisation. Animation enters the narrative. The drawings in Jonah's notebook move, and what the boy cannot say is given in those passages, made with a handmade technique. The subject is a child separating himself from his family. Jonah's sexuality is never spoken about inside the narrative and is entirely implied. The mother and father avoid the type; both are loving and both cause harm, and the film takes no side. It won an award at Sundance and drew wide attention in independent cinema. Who it is for: viewers who like poetic American independent film and stories told from a child's view. Who it is not for: there is almost no plot, the narrative is fragmentary, and the pace is very slow.