American Animal
Screen Media Films | Release Date: May 18, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
52
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 7 Critic Reviews
Positive:
3
Mixed:
2
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
New York PostV.A. MusettoMay 18, 2012
American Animal is a wildly experimental debut for D'Elia, who uses hand-held digital cameras and lots of jump cuts. It is well-acted and features witty repartee. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineKalvin HenelyMay 14, 2012
It may be baked with the same ingredients that come in your standard mumblecore starter kit, but because of Matt D'Elia's indebtedness to other movies, the film follows a different recipe altogether. Read full review
70
Village VoiceMichael AtkinsonMay 15, 2012
Bizarre, off-putting, and finally demanding of rubberneck respect, this fish-tank indie never leaves a rather lovely duplex apartment, occupied by an unemployed Everyman (Brendan Fletcher) and his roommate, Jimmy (director Matt D'Elia). Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleMay 31, 2012
At first American Animal has a mysterious unreality to it, a strange diorama about easy leisure's emptiness. But when James admits he's taken a job - upending the roomies' slacker utopia - American Animal becomes a philosophically strident evening of speechifying local theater (topic: human evolution). Read full review
60
Time OutDavid FearMay 15, 2012
While American Animal's finely tuned filmmaking is leagues above the usual Indiewood sloppiness, all the movie-quoting manic episodes feel like empty grandstanding; it's hard to tell where D'Elia's own psychotic cinephilia ends and the character's begins. Read full review
33
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayMay 16, 2012
Seen as some kind of absurdist, meta-textual horror story, American Animal almost works. In every other way? It's fuckin' poopy-loopy. Read full review
30
The New York TimesAndy WebsterMay 17, 2012
It's showtime!" says Jimmy, the one-man band of American Animal. And for Matt D'Elia, who plays him in this hour and a half of pretentious mind games, it certainly is. There are other players, but it's all about Jimmy, portrayed with a free-associative, Jim Carrey-like mania. Read full review
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