Animal Thoughts (2023)

Since the film has occupied the spot of “Films so good I can’t review them” in me, I can only provide some shortcomings, that I felt the film had:

Bobby Deol, who plays Abrar Haque the main villain, is criminally underutilized and probably has a screen time of 10 mins at the most. But even in these, he is absolutely mental in the role of a mute, revenge filled man.

The portion post the interval deviates in a way, which is fascinating on its own and quite brilliant too, but for the moment, I fail to see how those portions help in the overall theme/idea of the film. Maybe a 2nd viewing (which I’m dying for) is needed.

The nonlinear structure, while done in a better way than in Arjun Reddy, seems unnecessary i.e. I don’t feel why a linear screenplay wouldn’t have worked for this.

And the final point is that, in the film’s best sequence, which is the 15-20 odd min stretch where Rashmika and Ranbir’s characters have a marital dispute between each other after a revelation made by Ranbir, and it stands as the film’s best sequence, and Rashmika proves in that scene, where she solidly dominates Ranbir, as to why Indian men are simpy people who have too much sexual frustration.

This sequence alone made me consider Animal as the best film of this year, giving some competition to Chithta.