Ani­mals offers a dif­fer­ent kind of Mil­len­ni­al counter-narrative

Appar­ent­ly, Mil­len­ni­als are defined by their reluc­tance to ​‘grow up’. Sophie Hyde’s Ani­mals, adapt­ed from Emma Jane Unsworth’s epony­mous 2014 nov­el, chal­lenges this divi­sive stereo­type head on. Chron­i­cling the lives of best friends Lau­ra (Hol­l­i­day Grainger) and Tyler (Alia Shawkat), the film is a poignant reflec­tion on a generation’s delayed tran­si­tion into adult­hood, as well as the inher­ent con­flicts of mod­ern fem­i­nism and the com­ing-of-age nar­ra­tive itself.

When do we real­ly become ​‘adults’? At 18. Or is it 21? Thir­ty? While Ani­mals ini­tial­ly appears to glam­or­ise youth­ful, free­wheel­ing hedo­nism, it ulti­mate­ly becomes a dark study of choos­ing to live only in the present. The film offers a grit­ty, unfil­tered look at the per­ilous pur­suits of plea­sure and bod­i­ly aban­don. In its own way, it is a fem­i­nist sub­ver­sion of the roman­tic com­e­dy; almost an anti-chick flick.

Above all, Ani­mals presents a refresh­ing counter-nar­ra­tive to every clichéd por­tray­al of young peo­ple clam­ber­ing up the lad­der of so-called ​‘suc­cess’ – be it through their pro­fes­sion­al careers or per­son­al rela­tion­ships. One of the film’s most resound­ing mes­sages is: why do we have to take life so seriously?

Liv­ing in a joy­ous yet sex­less ​“friends-mar­riage”, Lau­ra and Tyler are emo­tion­al­ly and finan­cial­ly co-depen­dent. They share a love of wine, the poet­ry of WB Yeats, and an irrev­er­ence for any­thing that falls under the cat­e­go­ry of ​‘main­stream’. Their exces­sive drink­ing only thin­ly veils the unease felt by Lau­ra (bril­liant­ly played by Grainger), who at 32 is becom­ing increas­ing­ly anx­ious about life, brought on in part by the expec­ta­tions and judge­ment of her fam­i­ly and preg­nant sister.

Still in her twen­ties, Tyler is yet to expe­ri­ence those same pres­sures. She is adamant that she will nev­er suc­cumb to the dead­ly-bor­ing ​“silence of the sub­urbs”. The inti­ma­cy of these two women seems air­tight, that is until Jim (Fra Free), an ambi­tious, dreamy pianist with hair like a Roman­tic poet, arrives on the scene.

Laura’s reluc­tance to embrace adult­hood is reflect­ed by her nov­el-in-progress. We learn that, although she has been devel­op­ing the idea for a decade, she has writ­ten no more than 10 pages. Drink­ing has become a form of pro­cras­ti­na­tion, a mech­a­nism to hide the fact that she has lost moti­va­tion and focus. Her lack of con­fi­dence in com­par­i­son to Jim’s osten­si­ble self-assured­ness is per­haps tes­ta­ment to their respec­tive gen­ders. Feel­ing like an imposter when she refers to her­self as a ​‘writer’, Lau­ra drinks to swal­low down her own feel­ings of inadequacy.

Rein­forc­ing the mythol­o­gised image of the writer pas­sive­ly wait­ing for inspi­ra­tion (as opposed to active­ly and con­sis­tent­ly work­ing hard), Tyler serves as a dis­tract­ing enabler. She leads her friend astray, per­haps so that she can jus­ti­fy her own cur­rent state of bohemi­an malaise, which is sup­ple­ment­ed by her wealthy, estranged fam­i­ly in Amer­i­ca. View­ing Jim as a threat to her rela­tion­ship with Lau­ra, Tyler says she dis­trusts him because he wears the ​“the shoes of an undertaker.”

But Tyler’s com­plex char­ac­ter also reflects aspects of con­tem­po­rary fem­i­nism (“My fem­i­nism is about blaz­ing a way through old tra­di­tions,” she says). Her dis­dain for the insti­tu­tion of mar­riage is mir­rored by an increas­ing pro­por­tion of today’s female pop­u­la­tion. On the oth­er hand, women like Lau­ra are made to feel as if they are guilty fem­i­nists when they ful­ly embrace the tra­di­tion and secu­ri­ty of marriage.

Lau­ra rep­re­sents a cer­tain kind of flawed yet relat­able female pro­tag­o­nist, most recent­ly pop­u­larised by Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag. These women are typ­i­cal­ly white, well-edu­cat­ed, mid­dle-class and taint­ed by a melan­cholic nar­cis­sism and a touch of cyn­i­cism. The deci­sion to set the film in Dublin instead of Man­ches­ter (as it is in the book) was pri­mar­i­ly due to fund­ing issues, but can in this con­text also be seen as a way of dis­tanc­ing the film from the thorny issue of the British class system.

Although Ani­mals address­es some of the dif­fi­cul­ties of ​‘adult­ing’ hon­est­ly and with a degree of pathos, we are left won­der­ing to what extent is authen­ti­cal­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Mil­len­ni­als (pos­si­bly because Unsworth does not belong to this gen­er­a­tion and wrote some­thing par­tial­ly inspired by her expe­ri­ences). Lau­ra only belat­ed­ly begins to wor­ry about her future, where­as Tyler doesn’t think about it at all. In real­i­ty, young peo­ple today are acute­ly aware of the future and notions of ​‘suc­cess’, a mes­sage that is repeat­ed­ly dis­sem­i­nat­ed through online culture.

It has been report­ed that Mil­len­ni­als are not only shun­ning alco­hol and recre­ation­al drugs as a way to pre­pare for adult­hood, but are less like­ly to be sex­u­al­ly promis­cu­ous. They appear to care too much about work­ing hard in their twen­ties, focus­ing on curat­ing their dig­i­tal pres­ence rather than seiz­ing the moment for the sheer thrill of it, as the spon­ta­neous Tyler and Lau­ra do. The film omits these truths, though Jim (Laura’s fiancé) sym­bol­is­es the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of teetotalism.

Nev­er­the­less, Ani­mals is by turns an enter­tain­ing ode to rebelling against what is expect­ed of us and a reas­sur­ing reminder that adult­hood doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly equate to monot­o­nous con­for­mi­ty beyond the age of 30. The truth is, despite grow­ing up, our most pri­mal urges nev­er leave us.