Animals

Grainger is a revelation and Shawkat a rebel in this delightfully defiant celebration of women’s imperfections. Stick with them through the chaos and you’ll be rewarded with an utterly electric tale of female friendship.

Its wild nature won’t be to everyone’s taste, but that’s sort of the point. It’s not a film that cares if you find these women charming or likable – it just cares that you believe them.

Grainger and Shawkat are wonderful together, conveying the depth of a 10-year relationship with affection and honesty.

It’s the performances that punch through the illusion, as Grainger and Shawkat’s dynamic turns on a dime from raucous, debauched complicity to savage mutual confrontation — the kind of close, cold truth-telling that, where best friends are involved, results more often than not in hurtful lies being told.

Some of the wisecracking dialogue falls a bit flat and the narrative line is occasionally uncertain, but Grainger creates a watchable quarterlife crisis.

Animals is a smoothly-made, beguiling tale of female friendship, which, like its protagonist Laura (Holliday Grainger), sometimes feels a little lost, in need of a home.

The book Animals is based on, a well-reviewed literary work originally set in Manchester, has been adapted by the novelist herself, Emma Jane Unsworth. So why does the end result feel so inert and contrived, even if it's exceedingly pretty to look at?