All the Little Animals Reviews

This dark, modern-day fairy tale, played out against the lush beauty of the English countryside, is veteran producer Jeremy Thomas's directing debut. The unhappy son of wealth and privilege, man-child Bobby Platt (Christian Bale) has never fully recovered from a childhood car accident that left him slightly brain-damaged. His mother's premature death leaves the impulsive, animal-loving Bobby at the mercy of his brutal stepfather, Bernard DeWinter (Daniel Benzali); faced with the prospect of being sent to a mental hospital unless he gives up his rights to the family business, Bobby flees the London mansion he's always called home. Through the kindness of strangers, Bobby makes his way to rural Cornwall and encounters a kindred soul in Mr. Summers (John Hurt), a misanthropic hermit who lives in an isolated shack and devotes his days to burying animals that have been run down by cars. Summers becomes a benevolent father figure to Bobby, and the two share an eccentric idyll until they make the unfortunate decision to settle matters with DeWinter; Summers's naivete and Bobby's childish grasp of DeWinters's capacity for cruelty conspire to trigger a convulsive spasm of violence. Based on a 1969 novel by the late Walker Hamilton, this moody film is ravishingly beautiful to look at and refreshingly unlike the glib, movie-centric crime thrillers so popular with younger first-time directors. Thomas (whose producing credits range from THE SHELTERING SKY to CRASH) confidently adopts a leisurely pace that reflects the main protagonists' enchantment with the rhythms of nature, and their rejection of the chaotic pace of urban life. But the story's fairy tale atmosphere doesn't entirely mesh with its psychological underpinnings, and Benzali's one-note turn as Bobby's wicked, wicked stepfather is deeply out of sync with Hurt's and Bale's more naturalistic performances.