Critic Reviews

• Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times

  "American Animal" becomes a philosophically strident evening of speechifying local theater (topic: human evolution).

• William Goss, Film.com

  The film equivalent of being cornered at a house party by someone's coked-out friend of a friend until your ride home is ready to bounce.

• V.A. Musetto, New York Post

  It is well-acted and features witty repartee. Look for more good things to come from this talent.

• Andy Webster, New York Times

  [An] hour and a half of pretentious mind games...

• David Fear, Time Out New York

  While American Animal's finely tuned filmmaking is leagues above the usual Indiewood sloppiness, all the movie-quoting manic episodes feel like empty grandstanding...

• Michael Atkinson, Village Voice

  Bizarre, off-putting, and finally demanding of rubberneck respect...

• Frank Lovece, Film Journal International

  Self-indulgent indie about a trust-fund kid who thinks he's found the answer to the human experience. Whit Stillman it's not.

• Noel Murray, AV Club

  It's best to imagine this movie as a study of three good young actors trapped in an indie film project with a yammering weirdo.

• Kalvin Henely, Slant Magazine

  It may be baked with the same ingredients that come in your standard mumblecore starter kit, but because of Matt D'Elia's indebtedness to other movies, the film follows a different recipe altogether.

• Kenji Fujishima, Slant Magazine

  D'Elia's debut feature is, I think, a challenge worth taking. Here, it appears, is a real emerging vision, original, gutsy, and uncompromising.

• Fred Topel, Screen Junkies

  I think American Animal is an exercise in pure creativity, as in creativity in a vacuum with no consequence of narrative.

• Drew McWeeny, HitFix

  American Animal deserves to be seen, but more than that, it deserves to launch D'Elia as a filmmaker of note, and I'm curious to see where he goes from here.

• Jessica Baxter, Film Threat

  The eloquent, thought-provoking dialog flows at a theatrical pace, but it doesn't feel unnatural.

• Charles Ealy, Austin American-Statesman

  It's bizarre in countless ways. It's risk-taking. It's brave. It's the work of a young filmmaker who dares to be different. It'll be interesting to see what he does next.

• Emily Kirkpatrick, Paste Magazine

  This ending helps make American Animal a thought-provoking debut film that, though in need of further development and refinement, shows a lot of promise.

Read all 15 critic reviews