Raetsonwe Redundant and unnecessary.

SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Abbigail Bush what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

dougdoepke A movie like this strikes me as a matter of taste. On one hand, it's slow, talky, and confined strictly to drawing rooms. On the other, it's a story of some substance, as Tom (Howard) must work through common human desires to figure out where happiness lies. In short, should he link up with the sexy Cecilia (Loy) or with the talented Daisy (Harding). Had the screenplay tightened up, varied the staging, and livened things up, the appeal would be stronger. Unfortunately, the lively butler's (Gargan) un-butler antics don't amount to much bouncy relief. Nonetheless, Loy is drop-dead beautiful and a convincing manipulator, while Harding settles for a secondary and less glamorous role. I still can't decide on Howard—is he miscast or not. On one hand, he's got a bland screen presence, one that works against the pacing. Then too, I'm afraid a livelier mood would have overwhelmed his restrained struggle. On the other hand, he manages considerable subtlety in his portrayal of the conflicted rich man's son. Overall, viewers not turned off by what amounts to a filmed stage play, may find subtle rewards in this searching 85-minutes. For me, it was mainly a disappointing struggle.

kcfl-1 It's wife vs. ex-girlfriend. A look at the credits of "Animal Kingdom" will tell you who wins (Harding gets top billing; since it's pre-Code there's no obeisance to the sanctity of marriage). Like other Barry plays, this is under-written for the screen. The best assets of his other films are the actors, usually Katherine Hepburn (in this it's William Gargan as the butler). The only great film he produced is "High Society," and that needed music to elevate it. The under-development in "Animal" concerns the Myrna Loy character as the wife. We're supposed to sympathize with Tom's leaving her, but there's not enough objectionable in how she's written to motivate his abandonment. Nor is there enough bonding with Harding to make her a credible alternative. Real characters and adult conversation, then bogs down with tete-a-tetes in the last scenes and ends arbitrarily.

karlpov I came away from this with a somewhat different message than the playwright intended (the same playwright, I should point out, who started The Philadelphia Story with a comedic stylization of wife-beating). The hero, played by Leslie Howard, starts a publishing enterprise devoted to the avant-garde works admired by his friends. He marries, and surprise, his wife, played rather icily by Myrna Loy, has the philistine idea that he should publish a few titles which will actually reap a profit so that he can at least finance his little enterprise without losing the family fortune. The movie leaves no doubt that such a money-grubbing attitude is worthy of the deepest condemnation. Hubby naturally finds himself longing for his former without-benefit-of-clergy bedmate, played by Ann Harding, who understands his sensitive soul and is more likely to indulge his dissipating his wealth, since she has no more sense than he does.Oh, I enjoyed the movie, but I'm surprised that so many seem not to notice how shallow and stupid its ideas are. Leslie Howard does his best to make the protagonist seem noble, and I guess that for many viewers, he succeeds. Loy, not yet a star, is lovely as always.

bkoganbing That was a line from another Philip Barry play which had a bit more screen popularity than The Animal Kingdom. Philip Barry as a playwright was able to find an audience in two distinct eras of American history, the carefree Roaring Twenties and the poorer socially significant Thirties. He did with a clever mixture of social commentary while writing about the privileged classes enjoying their privileges.The Animal Kingdom had a 183 performance run on Broadway the previous year and its star Leslie Howard was a movie name already on two continents. So Howard, Bill Gargan, and Ilka Chase repeat their Broadway roles here. Good thing for Howard, he got to do this screen version of one of his Broadway triumphs. Probably in a few more years Cary Grant might have gotten the call.Howard is a rich young man rather bored with his life and living without benefit of clergy with bohemian artist Ann Harding. But family pressures force him to marry society girl Myrna Loy. Guess who in the end he winds up with or watch the film to find out.A lot of similarities here with Holiday, a Barry play that got a more well known screen adaption. An overbearing parent, snobbish friends/ relatives and two women to choose from, and some down to earth friends for the hero.The players do well here and a special note should be made of Bill Gargan who plays Howard's butler who is a washed up former prizefighter. The Animal Kingdom was Gargan's feature film debut and I wouldn't be surprised if Leslie Howard did the same service for him as he did for Humphrey Bogart in The Petrified Forest.The Animal Kingdom despite good notices failed to find an audience in Herbert Hoover America. Howard's problems do seem trivial in the face of what a lot of people were dealing with. Still it's a good and faithful adaption of a good play.