80
Metascore
27 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 91IndieWireEric KohnIndieWireEric KohnWhile Zagar doesn’t force the material into many surprising places, it’s a fully realized tapestry, owing much to the complex, layered score by Nick Zammuto that hums through nearly every scene, and frequent cutaways to hand-drawn animation based on the scrapbook that Jonah stores under his bed at night.
- 90The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyThe Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyIn his first narrative feature, documentary maker Jeremiah Zagar (In a Dream, Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart) captures the feel of the novel with uncanny precision, notably in the visceral charge and physical heat of tightly wound bodies almost constantly moving in close proximity.
- 88The Seattle TimesBrent McKnightThe Seattle TimesBrent McKnightDreamy and impressionistic, interspersed with fantastic bursts of animation, We the Animals plays like a gauzy, mesmerizing, half-remembered experience from childhood.
- 88Movie NationRoger MooreMovie NationRoger MooreThis is “The Florida Project” set in Pennsylvania, a memoir both brilliantly specific and depressingly universal.
- 83The PlaylistJordan RuimyThe PlaylistJordan RuimyThis is an assured, confident feature-directing debut for Zagar who shows great promise in his ability to render a confident and brilliant work of art from difficult-to-adapt source material. His film is a complicated coming-of-age tale that not only brings refreshing insights but gives us beautifully rendered images that have the power to haunt you for days.
- 83The Film StageChristopher SchobertThe Film StageChristopher SchobertWe the Animals is most effective when it breaks free from conventional storytelling and relies on image, sound, emotion, and mood.
- 75Slant MagazineChuck BowenSlant MagazineChuck BowenIn We the Animals, director Jeremiah Zagar sustains a tone of wounded nostalgia, fashioning a formalism that appears to exist simultaneously in the past and present.
- 70Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlVillage VoiceAlan ScherstuhlBrawling yet tender, wild yet rigorously controlled, first-time fiction director Jeremiah Zagar’s We the Animals is an impressionistic swirl of a film about masculinity, about abuse, about growing up queer, about chaotic family life, about the jumble of incidents and stirrings through which a child discovers a self.
- 58The A.V. ClubLawrence GarciaThe A.V. ClubLawrence GarciaUnlike Sean Baker, who grounded his "Florida Project" in a firm but never condescending viewpoint on the milieu, Zagar seems to lack a coherent directorial perspective on Torres’ story; he mistakes vérité-style handheld and frequent close-ups (mostly captured with wide-angle lenses) for genuine intimacy and engagement.
- 30Screen DailyAnthony KaufmanScreen DailyAnthony KaufmanFor all its deft style and sympathetic characters, there’s still something missing in We,The Animals. In its efforts to evoke a young boy’s inner-world, it falls short of fully capturing his emotional reality. Jonah’s story should be heartbreaking, but when we see images of him flying over the forest, it’s just picturesque and lyrical.