French New Wave director and noted aficionado of non-linear storytelling Jean-Luc Godard was famously quoted as saying, “I agree that a film should have a beginning, a middle and an end but not nec…
Laure Calamy, Denis Ménochet, Damien Bonnard, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Guy Roger “Bibisse” N’drin.French New Wave director and noted aficionado of non-linear storytelling Jean-Luc Godard was famously quoted as saying, “I agree that a film should have a beginning, a middle and an end but not necessarily in that order.” The sheer number of good nonlinear films, where the events of the story are not shown in chronological order, has confirmed the validity of that notion.
After Africa, it’s off to frigid southern France, where Alice , a married social worker having an affair with a client named Joseph , sees an abandoned car on the side of the road. When police get around to questioning Joseph, he claims to know nothing about the missing driver but, in fact, she is dead, wrapped in a blanket and hidden away in a corner of his farmhouse.
And so it will go in a film that doesn’t ask you to keep up so much as it encourages you to sink into the mystery and go along for the ride. The movie is broken up into five chapters, as Moll and behind the scenes MVP, editor Laurent Rouan, smoothly jump back and forth in time to deepen the mystery, provide backstory or repeat previously spoken dialogue in order to give it new or additional meaning.
If this fascinating section goes on too long and stretches the bounds of believability, it does feed into what “Only the Animals” is ultimately about: the lengths we go to escape loneliness. All five characters are pursuing an instinctual need to be loved, even if it leads to some bad choices. The most, if not only, emotionally moving chapter in the film belongs to the dead woman, a married bisexual named Evelyne .
“Only the Animals” is a mystery thriller with two mysteries to solve: who killed Evelyne and why does the primal pull of love and sex lead people to commit immoral acts. If there was a ready answer to the second question, it would be a better world. But we all have that tripwire moment when desire becomes intense enough to short-circuit our moral and intellectual hard wiring.
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