All the Little Animals

Plot

The story centers on an emotionally challenged man named Bobby (Christian Bale). He runs away from home in order to escape his abusive stepfather (Daniel Benzali), nicknamed "The Fat", who had killed Bobby's pet mouse and, as Bobby puts it, screamed at his mother until she died as a result. He finds himself in woodlands near Cornwall in England, eventually meeting an old man after being involved in a car accident (John Hurt). Mr. Summers, as the man calls himself, spends his time traveling and giving burials to animals that have been killed by cars, a task he refers to as "The Work". Bobby, also having an affinity for animals, becomes friends with the old man and aids him in his task.

Eventually, the pair return to London to confront "The Fat".

Cast

Background

Jeremy Thomas, by then an Academy Award-winning producer, later remembered his journey to becoming a director:

I read the book when I was young, in my twenties, and it stayed with me, and I thought for a fiftieth birthday present I would try and make a movie, to direct a film. Which I had always intended to do when I started in the business as an editor, and I was arising to fifty and I had never made a film of my own, although I had been very involved with other people’s films. So I made this film. It was a personal film, because I think it is a nice thing to make a first film about some sort of centre that is important for you, to centre you on the movie and to keep you driven, with an ideology behind the film. So I wanted to make a film about the heart of this book, which is about simple animals that we see every day in nature. It is an antidote to the other movies basically. But I can see that theme in the other movies that I have chosen to produce as well underneath.