Love Animal or hate it, you can’t ignore Ranbir Kapoor-Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s raw and real film

After Arjun Reddy and Kabir Singh, this unabashed brazenness was expected from Sandeep Vanga. However, toxic masculinity in Animal is not as inherently present in its hero as it is in the ‘good’ son-in-law and in an abject bad man played with much panache by Bobby Deol. Religion and politics also play a pivotal role in the visual imagery of this saga.

Ranvijay Singh and his father Balbir Singh (a superb Anil Kapoor, who also gets to play another version of himself in one of the most ingenious scenes) are also cut from the same cloth (like most of the male species are, as Ranvijay rants to his wife in the second half) but somewhere his love towards his father, his willingness to go to any length to protect his family and his love for his wife makes him stand apart, even if as an eccentric hero. He is not the villain, but he is also an Animal who takes on the villain(s) as is artistically depicted post a killing scene when the title and logo of the film circle around Ranbir’s head. We are told not to forget he is NOT a wholly good man and he’s not going to apologise for it.

Ranbir Kapoor and Anil Kapoor in Animal.

There is no question that Animal is centered around men. I was reminded of Selvaraghavan’s Pudupettai and Dhanush’s character, Kumar, who wasn’t the do-gooder godfather but a selfish survivor who is deeply flawed, especially when it came to women and that was his story. Both Pudhupettai and Animal make you uncomfortable, but the challenge for any writer or filmmaker is to make an audience empathise with this crazily self-aware, high IQ cave-man, whose actions land the family in jeopardy (depending on which way one looked at it) but he’s also its saviour. It’s a tight rope walk and Sandeep Vanga does it brilliantly and with zero regard for any social media outrage (post Interval there is a scene with the doctors, do watch for Ranvijay’s retorts). The editing punches land well (the transition shot from Ranbir to Bobby Deol promises a high) and the music stays with you long after you leave the theatre.

I won’t accord Sandeep Vanga the tag of “an important voice” because he’s not representing any “issue” here. In Animal, the hero says, “It’s a man’s world, I’m sorry but that’s the truth” and that does make Vanga’s cinema problematic, but is it the truth, isn’t it? Animal also projects several other layers, such as the impact of social influences on our childhood psyches, especially on the Indian male psyche. Ranvijay is a product of the hierarchy entrenched in Indian parenting where you are expected, nay encouraged, to accept what parents say as gospel. Our culture is also deeply rooted in glorifying heroes and villains from mythology. Throw in tons of money and immense power at a man who’s eager to wield it, and you have a Brian de Palma (Scarface mainly) tribute that is set inside a family drama. Vanga delivers on that ambition and thrashes every “ism” there is but not without telling you that he doesn’t care about what you think about his views. Such rawness is rare. It doesn’t need protection or praise but one has to acknowledge that it’s rare to see irreverence that is not in compliance with what the majority seems to lean into.

Rashmika Mandanna in Animal. (Image: Rashmika Mandanna/Facebook)

Rashmika Mandanna delivers a performance that’s way more mature than her years as a mainstream heroine. Her Geetanjali (her name and the Roja track that plays as Ranvijay sees her seems like a hat-tip to Mani Ratnam) is also not “normal” (a conversation between husband and wife brings out the complexity of their marriage) but she shows a lot of spine. A bad husband need not make a bad father. Animal is not about hailing goodness – it is about baring its naked self. The core of this film is the similarity and differences between Balbir and Ranvijay – as men and as fathers. And the resultant effect it has on the women and children in their lives.

Animal is not ‘woke’, and is an ‘uncomfortable’ film to watch. But is our society in its entirety ‘woke’? While a filmmaker’s role is also to show us a better way of life, there are also filmmakers like Vanga who depict the dark side – a person who is the amalgamation of various influences. Also can a film that ticks off all the boxes of good filmmaking be made on premise so troublesome that makes you doubt your moral code for liking it. Vanga says “Why not?” In this film, the lead character asks only to be loved and accepted; one can play each scene between father and son and treat it like a “what if the father understood his son” and see an entirely new film.
Now, is that love too much to give?