American Animals

 

Bart Layton's American Animals is one of the more unjustly overlooked features of the past few years. The film examines the misbegotten attempts by four students to steal rare books from the collection of Transylvania University. The film interweaves the narrative with interviews of the actual participants. Layton views his hapless subjects with a fully rounded humanity that prevents the film from succumbing to moralizing.

He is greatly helped by his two leads, Evan Peters and Barry Keoghan, who do a fine job fleshing out this folie a deux. Keoghan seems to have a lock on playing creeps and Peters brings the barely contained hysteria he has ably displayed on American Horror Story.

I was familiar with the story going in, but Layton's skill at ratcheting up the suspense had me palpitating. A find.