Animal Farm

Author(s): Alex / Daniel Crooke
Location: Washington State / Ohio

"Animal Farm”

Directed by: Oliver Stone
Screenplay by: Dan Futterman
Score by: James Horner
Principal Cast:

Principal Cast:

George Clooney as Theodore 'Napoleon' Richter
Denzel Washington as James 'Snowball' Jacobs
Paul Giamatti as Michael 'Squealer' Clark
Liam Neeson as Alex 'Boxer' Stevens
Jon Voight as Jameson 'Old Major' Doyal
Virginia Madsen as Sandra 'Clover' Miller
Steve Buscemi as "Moses"
Reese Witherspoon as Mollie Jones
Gene Hackman as Benjamin Washington
Patricia Clarkson as Muriel DiMarco
Rachel Weisz as Jessie Robertson
Maria Bello as Melissa 'Bluebell' Browning
Jack Nicholson as Mr. Samuel Jones
Donald Sutherland as Norbert Pilkington
Robert Duvall as Steven Frederick
Tommy Lee Jones as Jon Whymper

Tagline: "All employees are equal, but some employees are more equal than others"

Synopsis: A New York City office building. Jameson Doyal, a department head at Jones Inc., has a dream that the employees will rise up over their boss, Samuel Jones. Jones is the worst boss anyone could have. He keeps his employees late, makes them come in on weekends, underpays them, and is just an overall not a very nice man. Soon after Doyal tells his workers of his dream, he has a heart attack and dies. Theodore Ritchie (who is called Napoleon by his friends because of a daring trade deal he managed to make with a French company) and James Jacobs (who was called Snowball by his childhood friends and the name stuck) were Doyal's favorite deputies. The two desperately wanted to make sure that Doyal's dream would come true. So, they led a Class Action lawsuit against Jones. They constantly argue over who should run the business. The company's spokesperson, Michael Clark, and the hardest worker to most of the interns and employees, Alex Stevens, are both convinced into going along with Ritchie. At the trial to decide who is granted control of the office, Jones or the employees, Jacobs is called to the stand and gives a riveting speech on how cruel life at the office was under Jones. Not only do the employees win their case, but Jacobs is praised by the other employees, for his speech, and is expected to win the upcoming election between him and Ritchie to see who will hold the position of CEO and who will stay department head. It is at about this time that Ritchie and Jacobs issue the new office rules or "Seven Commandments" as they were nicknamed around the office. The rules state that every employee is equal and that they all will never enforce the tyranny that Jones did.

Ritchie now sees Jacobs as even more of a threat to his lust for power. It is then discovered that two other department heads, Jessie Robertson and Melissa Browning, lent Ritchie a total of nine interns. These nine interns, along with Clark, were then used to gather damaging information about Jacobs for Ritchie in order to get him fired. They were, as one could say, a secret police. Clark tells everyone that Jacobs was working for Jones when he gave his infamous speech. Ritchie fires Jacobs and intimidates the other employees into naming him CEO, and then promotes Stevens to department head. It turns out that only one employee was absent from the trial. Mollie Jones. Mollie Jones is Stevens' secretary and Samuel Jones' daughter. She loved the fact that she was treated differently from everyone else. She was never forced to stay late or had any of the inconveniences the other employees had. Clark is fed up with her complaining about her not getting special treatment any longer, and pushes her to resign and leave town. The only employee of Jones' to stay after he leaves is Benjamin Washington, the rusty old chief of security. The only reason why he does stay is because he really doesn't care what happens or how it is done and pretty much keeps to himself. This begins the "purification" of the office by Ritchie. Now that Ritchie is fully secure in his position, he decides to open up trade deals to make some money for the struggling business. Muriel DiMarco, head of the personnel office hires Jon Whymper to be the middle man in the soon to be announced trade summit. Norbert Pilkington is the CEO of Foxwood, INC based in London. Steven Frederick is the CEO of Pinchfeild, CO based in Berlin. Both companies are eager to pay the highest price. It looks like Ritchie is about to close the deal with Pilkington, but he decides instead to sell to Frederick. His reasoning? Jacobs is presumably now working as a top consultant to Pilkington.

It's about now that a homeless Christian fanatic starts to live in their parking garage. He is known only as "Moses", and is obsessed with Armageddon and the coming of next coming of Christ. He is seen only as an annoyance to most of the employees, as well as Ritchie. "Moses" begins to fill the employees' minds with a much better place then where they are already working. He tries to excite the employees into leaving the company. "Moses" disappears. With the money acquired from the deal with Frederick, Ritchie introduces a plan for an extension for their office building (which was originally Jacobs' idea). As soon as its completed, a really nasty storm tears down its foundation. Although this is true, Ritchie tells Clark to report to the employees that it was an act of sabotage by Jacobs, and that he was trying to bomb them to slow progress. The employees believe this and police put out a warrant for his arrest. Sandra Miller is Ritchie's assistant. She walks in on him breaking one of the "Seven Commandments". It stated that "No alcohol shall be consumed in the office". As several other commandments are broken, Ritchie believed that it was about time for a revision in the so called "Seven Commandments". In order to make sure he could do whatever he wanted, he revised the rules so that it only consisted of one. The one and only rule was "All employees are equal, but some employees are more equal than others". Soon Steven gets in a car accident and is immediately hospitalized. He has the third highest paying job and will be on the payroll while lying in bed. Instead of keeping him onboard, Ritchie fires him to save money. no employees shall be fired. Miller gets suspicious again, and is told by DiMarco that. At the end of the film there's a giant party hosted by Pilkington to congratulate Ritchie on a job well done. As they are talking, Ritchie starts to tell Pilkington of the new low wages and long hours to be announced the next day. It turns out that the company really hasn't gotten anywhere since Jones left. It got worse. At least for the common employees. Ritchie and his private staff were living the high life. All employees are equal, but some employees are more equal than others.

What the press would say:

Oliver Stone's newest film "Animal Farm" is one of the greatest adaptations I have seen in over a decade. The film is a parallel to the famous novel by George Orwell, which is also a parallel. Instead of animals on a farm, this film features businessmen and women in a major New York City business. The film has an outstanding cast with George Clooney and Denzel Washington as the lead actors, Theodore "Napoleon" Richter and James "Snowball" Jacobs. A few standouts are Steve Buscemi as the homeless Christian fanatic only known as "Moses", Paul Giamatti as Napoleon's right hand man Michael "Squealer" Clark, Liam Neeson as the extremely dedicated Alex "Boxer" Stevens, and Reese Witherspoon as Mollie Jones, the daughter of the boss, Mr. Jones (Jack Nicholson, in an outstanding portrayal), who is at times extremely frivolous and overly happy. Virginia Madsen and Patricia Clarkson play Sandra "Clover" Miller and Muriel DiMarco, respectively. Both were more than good and will for sure get Golden Globe nominations. Hopefully, both will end up with final Oscar nominations. The screenplay is brilliantly adapted by Dan Futterman. The film is edited beautifully with a great directing eye from Oliver Stone. The film has already won a few precursor awards including the Best Actor award at Venice for George Clooney and outstanding reviews from Toronto.Overall, "Animal Farm" is one of my favorite films of this fierce awards season and will be winning a few awards come Oscar time.

Nominations:
Best Picture
Best Director (Oliver Stone)
Best Actor (George Clooney, Denzel Washington)
Best Supporting Actor (Steve Buschemi, Paul Giamatti, Liam Neeson)
Best Supporting Actress (Virginia Madsen, Reese Witherspoon, Patricia Clarkson)
Best Adapted Screenplay (Dan Futterman)
Best Film Editing