Review: Goat

The opening moments of Goat present us with a mass of white young men huddled around something or someone, we never know. Their aggression is palpable, fascinating yet terrifying, and every sinew, every limb, every drop of blood appears infected by the most basic of instincts. They are stripped to the waist, but also stripped of the fundamental filter that delineates submission to the collective from the pure and simple foolhardiness of the individual.

This primitive and ritualistic tableau gives way to a fraternity party where brothers Brad (Ben Schnetzer) and Brett (Nick Jonas) are introduced. Brett is older, but not by much, and possesses the social ease which Brad sorely lacks. Where Brett is in full command - a member of Phi Sigma Mu, he takes advantage of the easy access to drugs, alcohol, and girls - Brad is flailing. He's a nice guy, but perhaps a little too naive.

His kindness leads to trauma when, after Brett decides to stay on at the party, Brad agrees to give a lift to two strangers who claim to have seen him at the party. The ensuing sequence may be the film's most unsettling as director Andrew Neel crafts an all-too-sickening tension.The violence that unfolds is shocking not in its brutality, but in the way the attackers keep going at him, almost halfheartedly, like a cat lazily batting around a mouse. His bruises may fade, but the stigma of his weakness does not. Brett and his fraternity brothers may laugh off the incident, but their compassion masks their contempt.

So it's not too difficult to understand why Brad would choose to subject himself to the hazing rituals established by Phi Sigma Mu. He wants to prove his worth, his manhood to them, to himself. Yet at what cost? He and his fellow pledges, including scrawny roommate Will (Danny Flaherty), undergo ever more demeaning endurance tests - copious amounts of beer are imbibed, even more copies amounts of vomit are egested, they're urinated upon, pelted with food and who knows what else - all in the name of character building and fostering solidarity. Neel's camera is unflinching as it observes the horror and humiliation. Many audience members may look away, but even they will wonder: what IS the point of all this? Yet it does demonstrate how those with a lack of identity and a surplus of insecurity can go to extremes in order to be accepted. The fragile Will says as much when Brad wonders why he keeps going even though it's clearly too much for him: "If the fraternity goes, everything goes with it." Who are you if you're not part of the brotherhood?

Goat is well-cast. Jonas navigates Brett's transition from frat boy who urges Brad to toughen up to concerned big brother with conviction. Schnetzer displays an intense vulnerability but also an underlying strength that hints at Brad's under-evaluation of his own self-worth. James Franco cameos as a former frat boy who may not be a husband and father, but who is all too happy to relive his glory days.

Goat

Directed by: Andrew Neel

Written by: David Gordon Green, Andrew Neel, Mike Roberts; based on the memoir by Brad Land

Starring: Ben Schnetzer, Nick Jonas, Gus Halper, Danny Flaherty, Virginia Gardner, James Franco, Jake Picking, Brock Yurich