ANIMALS (2014)

Directed by Collin Schiffli (his debut feature), but produced, written and starring David Dastmalchian, this is undoubtedly a vanity project.  Perhaps a good one, but still a vanity project.  Something of a ‘70s throwback, it’s all but a druggie two-hander for Dastmalchian and Kim Shaw, his partner in petty crime, hypodermic nirvana and bed.  We join the White middle-class heroin addicts when they’re still high-functioning narcissists.  A period tagline might read: They’re Young; They’re in Love; They’re Junkies.  Seen at comfortable distance, they display chic angularity with the sharply defined features and blotchy skin of those models manqué you might notice standing in the background of an Andy Warhol production shot at ‘The Factory’ in the ‘60s.  By the time they inevitably touch bottom, their faces have collapsed into Meth addict death masks.  Then, unlike the old period cautionaries on glam degradation, the pair, forcibly separated, get help.  One from Mom; one from a remarkably generous/effective/caring Public Care Program.  Clinging to their last chance the way they once clung to their sense of shitty personal entitlement as they conned, robbed and lied their way past bumps in the road during the height of their druggie run.  Bouncing back with a hard to swallow sense of hope hanging in the air, any chance of an honest portrayal now off the table.