Netflix's 'Animals' Ending Explained: Why Does Mark Hide the Truth About Hector’s Rescue?
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Ben Affleck’s Netflix thriller Animals turns a bungled ransom handover into a bloody battle over who gets to tell the story.
"There’s leverage and there’s also right and wrong," says Ben Affleck about halfway through Animals. “And decency is what separates us from the animals.”
Gillian Anderson, in an all-white power suit and slicked-back hair, ripostes: "Humans are animals who tell stories."
And there it is – the movie distilled into a single line. We are but animals who tell each other stories, stories to soothe, stories to survive, stories to manipulate people into doing things for us, like vote.
Animals is about the power of a good story.
The beginning: up a tree
As the famous screenwriting adage goes: “Put your character up a tree, throw rocks at them, then get them down.” Animals fits that three-act structure perfectly.
We open with a classic set-up. Mark Kimball is an ambitious politician so desperate to become mayor of Los Angeles that he’s prepared to spend his family savings on the campaign. To the outside world, his image is built on a story of happy families. But behind the smile-for-the-camera composition is a marriage in crisis, all very Ingmar Bergman. His once-loving wife, Abigail (Kerry Washington), is having an affair. She’s ready to leave him when the time is right. Now is not that time, with the mayoral election looming. One key demographic Mark absolutely must seduce is LA’s large Latino population. That’s why he’s learned fluent Spanish.
Mark and Abigail also employ a Mexican woman, Cecile, as nanny to their pre-teen son, Denny. Cecile has a son of her own, Hector, who has become Denny’s pal. Then there’s Hector’s dad, Ramon, who is living in the country illegally. When Cecile asks them to help him find work, they politely refuse. Hiring an undocumented immigrant would not play well with the white American vote.
That’s Mark and the gang safely up the tree.
The middle: throwing rocks
Now come the rocks. The first is the kidnapping of Mark’s son, Denny, at a Halloween parade in town with Cecile and Hector. Or so they’re led to believe.
The kidnapper demands $7m for the boy’s safe return. In cash. Tonight. "Today is the worst day of your life," he tells Mark. "Welcome to your worst nightmare."
But Mark doesn’t have that kind of dough lying around, at which point Affleck does a very fine impression of Nicolas Cage losing his shit.
Storytelling: the most basic instinct
So, via Mark’s sleazy campaign chief, Sam (played by Matt Damon), Gillian Anderson is called in. Her character, Dayle, is a mysterious money-lender who operates only in the shadows, a slick-haired loan shark with heavy Basic Instinct-era Sharon Stone energy. She can lend them the money, but it’ll cost them: a $1.4m service fee.
The moment they agree, Denny runs into the house, safe as houses. Then it dawns on them: the kidnapper took the wrong boy. It was Hector, not Denny. They were wearing the same costume.
They want to call the police, but Sam points out it won’t look good if they complied with the kidnapper’s demands when there’s a chance Hector might not survive. So Mark makes a deal: he’ll pay the ransom, but only if the kidnappers agree to let him meet Hector first.
Why does Mark hide the truth about Hector’s rescue?
The rest of Animals explores this question as Mark navigates a labyrinthine web of deceit and storytelling, where no one is who they seem to be and every narrative has its price.