Why is Animal?
It’s only fitting that a film like this is a reflection of its troubled protagonist. At times, Animal stops pretending, and just becomes the playground for Ranbir Kapoor that it’s designed to be. It’s more of a messy portfolio than a potent performance – a greatest-hits mixtape that searches for meaning in a troubled movie. It’s like all the man-children Kapoor excelled at playing have now grown up – if one must call it that – to become this one shapeless sociopath. At some point, he has a Pablo-Escobar-ish belly. At another, he strolls into his garden naked after a heart transplant. At another, he spanks the wife’s bottom in the kitchen to tease their sexless marriage. At another, he responds to a psychologist asking about his sex life with a similar question. At another, his wife abruptly takes off her top in the living room so that he can nestle his face in her chest. At another, he taunts his dad for being absent through his childhood, but also psychoanalyzes himself and concludes that the absence is why he yearns for his validation. In other words, ‘unpredictability’ is an artistic excuse for characters who have no rules. Not everyone can be a Joker, though.
During the interval, I was at a loss of theories. I didn’t know what to make of him or the film. All I could ask was: What’s the point? Why is Animal? So then, I decided to intellectualize this fellow – who says anything, does anything, feels anything, like a loose cannon happily floating about in outer space. I wondered if this man could be a rich drifter who is so aimless that perhaps he’s faking love for ‘papa’ to rescue himself from a life of oblivion. Maybe he’s manufacturing conflict and madness to water his own dormant seeds of masculinity. Maybe revenge is his only way to stay relevant. Maybe he goes: “Oh, my family had a problem with my lack of ambition huh? Let’s give them a bloated and self-indulgent journey to nowhere.”
I found myself comparing him to the lost little men of films like October (a man saves himself by caring for a comatose woman) and Rockstar (a musician seeks tragedy to create art). I also found myself wondering if the super-fans of Animal would soon call themselves “Stanimals”. I thought of how a middle finger is also a middle finger to the person who flashes it. But then the end credits rolled. I had to stop thinking and start writing. So I naturally went: Oh, they have a problem with sharp and legitimate criticism huh? Let’s give them a review in which the film’s biggest flaw is that no actual animals feature in it. Yes, that should teach them. Who’s the beast now?
