‘Le Regne Animal (The Animal Kingdom)’ Is Too Conventional To Truly Roar [Cannes Review]

Studiocanal has nearly sold out worldwide on Andrew Garfield-Florence Pugh romantic drama “We Live in Time,” executive produced by Benedict Cumberbatch. Owned by Vivendi’s Canal Plus Group, Studiocanal has also closed half the world on both James McAvoy’s “Control” and Thomas Cailley’s Un Certain Regard opening film “Animal Kingdom,” a critics’ favorite at this year’s festival.   The banner sales news, replicated across other titles on Studiocanal’s broad sales slate, follows quick on the heels of two signature deals at Cannes: A24’s U.S. pickup on “We Live In Time”; a pact with Sony Pictures for the U.S., Canada and much of the world for “Paddington in Peru.”

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on Rotten Tomatoes. While presales were soft compared to other summer superhero films, the film’s very strong word of mouth will likely allow it to perform above expectations when it comes to walk-up ticket sales.

It would be nice to think that desires are nothing more than preferences, springing organically from a fixed identity and unaffected by outside circumstances such as personal history and societal norms. The reality is, of course, much thornier, and trying to disentangle the many different factors influencing our tastes and longings can quickly cause a lot of suffering.

What has fallen flat at Pixar? This is the innovative animation studio that pushed all before it in the first decade of this millennium, that invented a way of turning the plastic finish of digital animation to its advantage in the towering Toy Story, that was prepared to start a film with a 20-minute scene with no dialogue in Wall-E – and revealed that kids didn’t care – and that would make an adventure film with a hero aged 78 years young in UP!. Kids didn’t care about that either, as it turned out, because Carl Fredricksen was a grumpy-gramps adventurer who also didn’t care what others thought of him. Pixar always had something new up its collective artistic sleeve. And yet here they are, coming out with a film as dull-witted and syrupy as Elemental. 

is giving viewers the classic fairytale with several modern-day tweaks. The Rob Marshall-directed musical stars Halle Bailey as the titular, headstrong princess, a drastic departure from her previous depiction that initially garnered racist backlash.But Bailey's casting is only one of the changes made to the new live-action adaptation, which also stars Jonah Hauer-King as Prince Eric, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, and Javier Bardem as King Triton, with Daveed Diggs as the voice of Sebastian the crab, Jacob Tremblay as Flounder, and Awkwafina as Scuttle.Here are 15 ways the remake differs from the original.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” one of the best reviewed films of the Cannes competition, which was bought by Neon, examines the collapse of a marriage and a mother-and-son relationship in a documentary-style courtroom drama. The chamber piece is driven by Sandra Hüller’s (“Toni Erdmann”) nuanced performance as a successful German novelist on trial for the murder of her husband (Samuel Theis), who died in mysterious circumstances in a remote corner of the snowy French Alps. Their visually impaired 11-year-old son (Milo Machado Graner) is called on the witness stand, prompting a dissection of Sandra’s conduct as a wife and a mother. Supporting roles are played by Swann Arlaud and Antoine Reinartz.

CANNES: Docudramas are inherently difficult to master. You’re attempting to meld real-life footage or people with actors and, often, fictionalized accounts that may substantially differ from the truth.

CANNES – Martin Scorsese isn’t the only 80-year-old filmmaker with a movie in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Marco Bellocchio, who was most recently at the festival in 2019 with “The Traitor,” returns at the spry young age of 83 with the ambitious tale of Edgardo Mortara, in “Kidnapped.” A movie that begins with a horrific act by the Catholic Church and then attempts to paint a portrait of one of the most infamous popes of relatively modern times, Pope Pius IX.

EXCLUSIVE: As production on his new actioner Den of Thieves 2: Pantera continues, Christian Gudegast has been set to write and direct a new film on mixed martial artist Royce Gracie and the birth of the Ultimate Fighting Championship for frequent partner Tucker Tooley Entertainment.

K.J. Yossman Barbara Neri’s LGBTQIA+ play about a woman who claims to be Tennessee Williams heroine Blanche DuBois is set to be adapted as a feature film, with sales launching at Cannes. Neri has partnered with Ango-American filmmaker Jaclyn Bethany’s BKE Productions for the adaptation. According to the logline, “Unlocking Desire” tells the story of “an institutionalized woman who claims to be Tennessee Williams’ iconic heroine Blanche DuBois and must unravel the tragic circumstances that brought her there.” Nancy Oswein (“Betrayed”) is on board to produce the feature, which is set to shoot on location in New Orleans and Detroit later this summer.

Lord, give me strength. From the first minute of “The Idol,” the already controversial music-based television series from HBO Max (sorry, Max), it’s clear that creators Abel Tesfaye (formerly known as The Weeknd), Sam Levinson, and Reza Fahim want to incite a reaction.

Sam Levinson’s The Idol, the new HBO series starring Lily-Rose Depp and Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye, received a five-minute-plus standing ovation after its world premiere out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday night.

An English lieutenant, an American cowboy, and a mixed-race Chilean sheepherder venture into the inhospitable limits of the Tierra de Fuego region at the southernmost tip of the South American continent—the ends of the Earth, some might call it. Under the orders of their employer, landowner José Menéndez (the always masterful Alfredo Castro), the trio’s mission is to savagely murder as many Indigenous people as they encounter in their path.  READ MORE: 2023 Cannes Film Festival: 21 Must-See Movies To Watch Set in 1901, “The Settlers” (Los Colonos), a scorching Western on Chile’s blood-soaked national myth, takes aspects from the official text-book history and probes at their conveniently sanitized interpretations of how they shaped the country’s future.

Mia Wasikowska is back on the red carpet!

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent A bold departure from France’s cinema tradition of social realism, Thomas Cailley’s widely ambitious sophomore outing “The Animal Kingdom” is equally a creature-filled dystopia, an emotionally charged father-and-son drama and a coming-of-age tale. The character-driven film world premiered to warm reviews at the Cannes Film Festival where it bowed the Un Certain Regard section. “The Animal Kingdom” is represented in international market by Studiocanal and was produced by Pierre Guyard at Nord Ouest Films, and co-produced by Artemis. “The Animal Kingdom” takes place in an undetermined future in France which has been swept by a genetic disease causing people to transform into creatures that are being hunted down and killed or institutionalized by authorities. Kircher, the breakout star of Christophe Honoré’s “Winter Boy,” plays 16-year-old Emile whose mother was institutionalized after showing first signs of a genetic mutation. He lives with his father Francois (Romain Duris) who is struggling to overcome grief.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Paris-based company Indie Sales has closed further sales on “Richard the Stork 2,” and expects to sell the last remaining territories during the Cannes Film Market. The film, also known as “Richard the Stork and the Mystery of the Great Jewel,” is a follow up to “Richard the Stork” (released in North America as “A Stork’s Journey”), which was widely distributed in 155 countries and grossed more than $20 million worldwide. Indie Sales, which sold Oscar nominee “My Life as a Zucchini” to more than 80 territories, is increasingly focusing on acquiring big budget animation.

EXCLUSIVE: New indie film financier Mizzel Media is launching in Cannes with what we understand to be a healthy six-figure investment in feature The Girl From Köln, the next film from Holy Spider and The Tale outfit One Two Films.

, the 20-year-old daughter of actors Michael, 78, and , 53, joined her parents on the red carpet at the film festival for the premiere of Jeanne du Barry in a stunning white gown. Michael Douglas also received the Honorary Palme d'Or for lifetime achievement, and his documentary, Michael Douglas, The Prodigal Son, is screening at the festival. Carys's white Elie Saab gown is made out of a sheer lace fabric, with some netting detail at the skirt.

Within the first few minutes of “The Delinquents,” Del Toro (Germán De Silva), the manager of a Buenos Aires bank, longs for the days when people were allowed to smoke anywhere: on airplanes, at restaurants, etc. He mourns that past as a time of greater freedom, until a colleague challenges him to reconsider the statement—the dictatorship ruled in those days.  Del Toro backpedals and clarifies that what he misses is the notion that everybody smoked.