Alia Shawkat’s not ready for the party to end in a new UK trailer for “Animals.” An adaptation of Emma Jane Unsworth’s novel of the same name, the dramedy tells the story of Dublin-based BFFs Tyler (Shawkat) and Laura (Holliday Grainger), who spend their drug and booze-fueled nights sharing laughs and taking turns puking into toilets.
The platonic soulmates come to a fork in the road when Laura falls for someone and seems poised to settle down.”You know, none of this changes our friendship,” she insists. She even asks Tyler to be her matron of honor. But it’s clear that major changes are afoot — and the curtain’s closing on the pair’s epic and endless nights out.
Directed by Sophie Hyde and penned by Unsworth, “Animals” made its world premiere at Sundance in January and will screen at Sundance London this week.
“I want [audiences] to think about the people they have loved for a glimmer, season, or lifetime that might not be around anymore, by choice or circumstance, and the way those loves are a gift and not a failure because they are not current,” Hyde told us. “I want people to feel seduced by both the party and the deep friendship, sexual desire, freedom, and tantalizing living that the girls in the film aspire to, and equally drawn to the freedom of working hard and creating and finding a way to express yourself, make things, and build your own life for what you need. Is all of that possible?”
“Animals” marks Hyde’s follow-up to 2013’s “52 Tuesdays,” which won the directing award in the World Cinema Dramatic section at Sundance and the Crystal Bear at the Berlinale.
“Arrested Development,” “Search Party,” and “Paint It Black” are among Shawkat’s recent credits. Grainger’s include “C.B. Strike,” “Tell It to the Bees,” and “Tulip Fever.”
“Animals” arrives in UK theaters August 2. No word on a U.S. release date yet.
