''Aardvark'' is a 2017 American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed and written by Brian Shoaf. The film stars

Zachary Quinto Zachary John Quinto (; born June 2, 1977) is an American actor and film producer. He is known for his roles as Sylar, the primary antagonist from the science fiction drama series ''Heroes (American TV series), Heroes'' (2006–2010); Spock in th ...

Jenny Slate Jenny Sarah Slate (born March 25, 1982) is an American actress, comedian, and author. Born and raised in Milton, Massachusetts, Slate was educated at Milton Academy and studied literature at Columbia University, where she became involved in the ...

Sheila Vand Sheila Vand is an American actress and performance artist. She is known for her role in Ben Affleck's 2012 Oscar-winning film '' Argo''. Vand made her Broadway debut alongside Robin Williams in 2011 in the Pulitzer-nominated ''Bengal Tiger at th ...

, and

Jon Hamm Jonathan Daniel Hamm (born March 10, 1971) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Don Draper in the period drama television series ''Mad Men'' (2007–2015), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Televisi ...

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

began on November 30, 2015 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It premiered at the 2017

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by TriBeCa Productions, Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive progra ...

. It was released on April 13, 2018. Emily Milburton is a therapist who is struggling with personal problems. Things change when she meets her new patient, Josh Norman, who is mentally ill. Josh starts to develop feelings for Emily but things get interesting when Emily falls for Josh's brother, Craig.

Cast

as Josh Norman, Craig’s brother *

as Emily Milburton *

as Craig Norman, Josh's brother *

as Hannah *

Tonya Pinkins Tonya Pinkins (born May 30, 1962) is an American actress and filmmaker. Her award-winning debut feature film ''RED PILL'' was an official selection at the 2021 Pan African Film Festival, won the Best Black Lives Matter Feature and Best First Fea ...

as Abigail *

Marin Ireland Marin Yvonne Ireland is an American actress. Known for her work in theatre and independent films, ''The New York Times'' deemed Ireland "one of the great drama queens of the New York stage". Her accolades include a Theatre World Award and nomina ...

as Jenny *

Peter Grosz Peter Grosz is an American actor and television writer. He is most recognizable for appearing in Sonic Drive-In's "Two Guys" commercials, in which he appears as the straight man in a double act with improvisational comedian T. J. Jagodowski u ...

as Anthony *

Dale Soules Dale Soules (born ) is an American actress known for starring in '' The Messenger'' and portraying Frieda Berlin in ''Orange Is the New Black'' from 2014 to 2019. Early life Soules was born on and grew up in the Greenwood Lake section of We ...

as Lucille

Production

On October 23, 2015, it was announced that Brian Shoaf would direct a drama film ''Aardvark'' based on his own script, while

would produce the film along with Susan Leber and

Neal Dodson Neal Dodson (born May 17, 1978 in York, Pennsylvania, United States) is an Independent Spirit Award-winning film producer. His producer credits include the Academy Award-nominated ''Margin Call'', the Golden Globe Award-winning and Academy Awards ...

. Great Point Media would be financing the film.

on the film began on November 30, 2015 in

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 12% based on 25 reviews, and an average rating of 3.8/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 39 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 3548028 2017 films American drama films 2017 drama films Films shot in New York City Films about mental health 2017 directorial debut films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films