Soft Animal
Feature | Drama
Logline
An Ivy League grad returns to his affluent hometown in suburban Ohio, where a series of volatile past relationships and the weight of inherited expectations force him to confront his Catholic faith, sexuality, and the life he was raised to inherit.
Themes
Faith, Sexuality, Privilege, Self-Deception, Arrested Ambition.
“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
- over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”
— Mary Oliver
Brief Synopsis
Adrift and unemployed, the unnamed Protagonist reconnects with old friends, drifts through casual indulgence, and unravels beneath the unspoken expectations of faith, masculinity, and inherited success that once defined him.
When he reenters a series of charged and increasingly manipulative relationships, the fragile narrative he’s built about himself begins to fracture. As romantic obsession, sexual repression, and spiritual doubt collide, he is forced to confront the possibility that the life he believed he was destined for may never have been his own.
Blending confessional intimacy with ensemble portraiture, Soft Animal explores spiritual dislocation, romantic manipulation, and the fragility of self-concept in late-stage millennial America. Rooted in Midwestern specificity yet emotionally universal, the film examines the spiritual navigation between desire and doctrine, ambition and inertia, and deciding what to preserve when personal narrative collapses.
Comparable Works
The Graduate. . . . . . . . . . . . (1967 ‧ Comedy/Romance)
Lady Bird. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (2017 ‧ Comedy/Drama)
Call Me By Your Name. . . (2017 ‧ Romance/Drama)
Frances Ha. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (2012 ‧ Comedy/Romance)
Aftersun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(2022 ‧ Drama/Coming-of-age)
First Reformed . . . . . . . . . . . (2017 ‧ Thriller/Drama)
The Souvenir . . . . . . . . . . . . . (2019 ‧ Romance/Drama)
