Animal Farm: A Biblical Worldview Movie Review for Parents

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On today’s podcast, we are going to be looking at the movie Animal Farm. We’re going to talk about what it is, what some positive elements are, whether there are any negative elements, and then we’re going to look at four biblically grounded worldview questions you can talk through with your kids if you choose to take them to see this movie.

That’s what we’re going to cover today on the Foundation Worldview Podcast, where we seek to answer your questions so that you can equip the children God has placed in your care to carefully evaluate every idea they encounter and understand the truth of the Christian worldview.

I’m your host, Elizabeth Urbanowicz, and I’m thrilled that you’ve joined me for this episode today.

Just as a little disclaimer, I want to make sure that for those of you watching on YouTube, the audience for this podcast is made clear. This is not mainly a movie review. This podcast is being recorded for intentional Christian parents who want to consider whether or not to take their child to see the movie Animal Farm. And then, if they do choose to take them, to have four biblically grounded worldview questions ready to discuss.

So in this movie review podcast, there are going to be spoilers. It is not going to be mainly focused on the quality of the film, but mainly on conversations to have surrounding the film.

This movie, Animal Farm, is recommended for children ages 11 and up. I think that recommendation is probably a good one. It could potentially be suitable for children who are 10 and up, but I would not recommend taking a child under the age of nine to see this movie.

And as I say on all of the Foundation Worldview movie review podcasts, I am never going to recommend that you take your child to see a particular movie, simply because that is a matter of conscience. You can choose to take them to see it, or you can choose not to take them. I am not going to recommend either way with this movie. It is purely a matter of conscience.

What we’re going to do is go through an overview of the film, what the plot is about, some positive elements, any negative elements, and then those four biblically grounded worldview questions.

An Overview of the Movie

I have to be honest up front that I have never read the book Animal Farm. Actually, as I was on my way to the movie theater, I thought, “Man, this is the fault of my school district. They never had me read it in high school.” And I did go to a terrible school district, so there was a lot of classical literature that most people read in high school that I did not read.

However, I am many years past high school, so the fault is really my own that I have never chosen to read Animal Farm. I cannot compare this movie to the book simply because I do not know the plot of the book. So I’m just going to go through what the plot of the movie is about.

As the movie opens, the animals on a farm are being loaded into a van because the farm is being foreclosed on. The animals learn, once they are locked inside the van, that they are on their way to the slaughterhouse.

They all get together to rebel. They open the doors of the van and are able to get away from those driving the slaughter truck. They gain their freedom and now have the farm all to themselves.

Initially, a pig named Snowball leads them. She sets up rules for the community. However, eventually another pig named Napoleon convinces everyone that Snowball is not out for their best. He sends Snowball away, and we later learn that she was probably killed by the dogs that took her away, though none of that is shown.

Throughout the movie, as Napoleon is the leader, he tries to win everyone over, but then he uplifts the pigs in the community and pushes everyone else down. For example, the pigs are invited to live in the farmhouse while the rest of the animals have to live in the barn. The rest of the animals end up doing all the work around the farm, and they only get fed by the pigs. The pigs have taken most of the food for themselves, and there is very little left over for the other animals. So the other animals are literally starving.

One of the main characters is a pig named Lucky. He is trying to figure out whether he agrees with what Napoleon is doing. Eventually, Napoleon convinces him that all of this is for the good. So Lucky leaves his home in the barn with his best friend, Boxer the horse, and goes to live in the house with Napoleon and the rest of the pigs.

Throughout the movie, Napoleon convinces the rest of the pigs to start walking on two legs as if they were humans. Napoleon then enters into a contract with a woman named Luby, who has a dream of basically taking over all the farmland. She convinces Napoleon to let her build a dam on the property to create massive amounts of energy.

As this is happening, Lucky finally realizes what is going on. Toward the end of the movie, he and all the other animals rebel against Napoleon and against Luby. In the process, they realize that they did not need a specific leader in order to have freedom. They needed to look out for one another.

That is the plot in a nutshell.

Positive Elements

Some positive elements of this movie are that the animation was done really well. When you have films coming out of smaller studios, sometimes you just do not know what the quality of the animation will be like, but the animation was excellent.

They also got some pretty well-known voice actors to play the animals. Glenn Close played Luby, Seth Rogen was Napoleon, and there were other voices I recognized as well.

The plotline is very engaging. The movie is only about an hour and a half long, so it was easy to hold attention. The plotline was pretty fast-moving.

And as you’ll see when we move into the questions, I thought this movie really provided an excellent opportunity to talk with our children about some more serious matters in life and to talk about them from a biblical perspective.

Negative Elements

For the negative elements, I did not think there were too many. The one thing I think is important for parents to be aware of is that some of the language used by the evil characters in the film is not language you are going to want your children to repeat.

This is one of the reasons I would recommend not taking a child under the age of nine. I really think it is most suitable for kids 10 and up.

Some of the language used by the evil characters includes “shut up.” They call others “losers” and “idiots.” Again, this is not bad language thrown in for the sake of bad language. It is bad language used to show how these evil characters are treating those they view as lesser than themselves.

I am not saying that completely justifies the use of the language, but I do think it is different when language is used to show that this is a negative way to treat someone rather than just using negative language for the sake of it.

There is also a part where someone who looks up to Napoleon describes him as the “sexiest pig alive,” so just be aware of that.

Toward the end of the movie, when Lucky gets the other animals to rise up and rebel against Napoleon, Napoleon is really trying to play a mind game with him. The film shows this a lot throughout: Napoleon uses language to belittle others and to get them to think that they need him to be in control.

When Napoleon is talking to Lucky toward the end of the film, he says, “You are a weak, sucky, stupid, ungrateful, ignorant animal.” Again, it is a whole string of words we do not want our children to use, but the purpose of those words is to show how Napoleon is trying to manipulate Lucky and the other animals.

That is the one element I think is important to be aware of.

Also, if you are planning to take a child who is a little more sensitive to things in film, I did not think there were many scary things in this movie. It was difficult for me to gauge because I went in the middle of the day, so I was the only one in the movie theater. There were no children around me for me to see how they responded.

But there was one part where I thought, “Oh, this is a little bit scarier.” It is when the pigs and the humans are having a party together, and Lucky realizes that the pigs are leading the farm in the same way that the humans before them had. He looks at Napoleon’s pig face, and suddenly that pig’s face morphs into a human face. Then he looks at Luby’s face, and her human face morphs as well.

It was not inappropriate, but for a child who might be more sensitive to things on the big screen, it was a little bit scary.

Those are the negative elements.

Now we’re going to transition into the biblically grounded worldview questions we can talk through with our kids.

Question 1: Where Did the Leaders of the Farm Get Things Right and Wrong?

The first question we can ask our children is, “Where did the leaders of the farm get things right, and where did they get things wrong?”

This whole movie is about leadership and the type of leadership that goes on at the farm. There are two main leaders in the movie. For a very short time, it is Snowball the pig. Then, after Snowball is banished by Napoleon, Napoleon takes over.

When you talk through this with your kids, ask them, “Where did we see Snowball get things right?”

In the beginning of the film, we see Snowball encouraging the animals to work together. The animals are all working together to try to make the farm a functioning farm, and Snowball encourages that. Her final rule as she is setting up rules is that all animals are equal. She creates this rule of treating all animals as equal.

Those are two positive things we see Snowball get right.

However, we also see her get some things wrong. Even though she said every animal is equal, she did not truly view all the animals as equal.

One of her rules was that no one could enter the farmhouse because the farmhouse was a reminder of the humans who had been in charge before them and had treated them wrongly. But she secretly sneaks into the farmhouse to get a manual to learn how to build a water wheel.

Lucky goes in after her and says, “I don’t think this is a good idea. This is against the rules. We wouldn’t allow anybody else to be in here.”

Snowball responds by saying, “These barnyard animals can’t imagine what is good for them. They must be shown. I went into the house because it’s for the good of all.”

Here, Snowball is justifying breaking the rules by saying it is for the common good. Apparently, breaking the rules is okay if it is for the common good. She is also saying the other animals are somehow below her. They cannot imagine what is good for them, so they must be shown.

A few scenes later, as Napoleon is trying to take over and is accusing Snowball of all sorts of crazy things, she loses her temper and says, “I’m trying to do what’s best, but you animals are just too dumb to understand.”

Here we see Snowball not getting things right. She viewed the animals as inferior to her and believed that she was somehow allowed to break the rules because she was in charge.

Those are important things to talk through with our kids. Leaders cannot break the rules just because they are leaders. Leaders are to be subject to the same rules as everyone else.

Then we look at Napoleon, who is the leader for most of the movie. Maybe you and your kids can think of something that he gets right. When I watched the movie, I could not really see anything he got right. Most of the things he does, he gets wrong.

He breaks all of the rules and then changes them. All of the rules were written out on a silo on the farm. Every time Napoleon breaks a rule, when someone says, “Hey, this is against the rules,” he changes the rule.

One of the rules was about two legs and four legs, and he changes it because he starts walking around on two legs and encourages the other pigs to do the same. He crosses out the rule and changes it to say, “Four legs good, two legs better.”

He breaks all the rules and then changes them.

He also purposely causes division among the farm animals. He makes it so that all of the pigs live in the farmhouse in a very privileged position. When he is trying to convince Lucky to move into the farmhouse, he tells him, “Pigs need to stick together.” By doing that, he separates Lucky from his other friends on the farm, specifically Boxer the horse. Lucky and Boxer had always been best friends, and Napoleon purposely separates them.

He also gives all the pigs special treatment.

The final rule on the silo, as I mentioned before, is that all animals are equal. Napoleon changes that rule after he breaks it. He changes it to, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” The pigs are considered the ones who are “more equal.”

Throughout the movie, we also see Napoleon caring only about himself. He only thinks about what he wants and what is best for him. At times it looks like he is caring about all the pigs, but when any of the pigs question him or say that what he is doing is wrong, they are kicked out and banished from him.

So he only cares about himself.

We can talk with our kids about how it is important for leaders to think about the good of the people they are leading. That is primarily a leader’s role: to faithfully care for the people under them.

A passage of Scripture we can take our kids to is Ezekiel 34:1–11. In this passage, God is specifically talking to the shepherds of Israel, the people who were leading them. In that case, it was mainly the priests, but it would also apply to false prophets and kings who did not follow him.

While there is not an exact parallel between what God is indicting these shepherds for and every single position of leadership, this passage shows us what God cares about and values in a leader.

Ezekiel 34:1–11 says:

“The word of the Lord came to me: ‘Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord God: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep?

You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep.

The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them.

So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts.

My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.

Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As I live, declares the Lord God, surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep,

therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep.

No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.

For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.’”

Again, this passage is not a direct parallel for every person who is in leadership, but it does show us God’s heart for leaders. Leaders are to shepherd those under them. They are to feed them, care for them, and tend them.

We can contrast God’s heart for leaders, who are supposed to care for those under them and put their needs first, with what we see in this movie with both Snowball and Napoleon, who did not truly care for the animals.

Then we can talk with our kids about how no leader on this earth is ever going to do this perfectly. No leader is going to be a perfect shepherd. But that is why verse 11 says, “I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.” Jesus is the true Shepherd who has sought out his sheep. He is our forever Leader, and he will forever lead us perfectly.

Question 2: Where Do We See Sacrificial Love?

The second question we can ask our kids is, “Where do we see sacrificial love in this movie?”

Those of you who are faithful Foundation Worldview podcast listeners, or those of you who seek out these movie reviews, are probably chuckling a little bit because this is a question I recommend we ask our kids in almost every movie we review here at Foundation Worldview.

There is a reason for this. The theme of sacrificial love is found in almost every good storyline. The reason is because it mirrors the greatest story of all: the gospel.

In most movies with compelling, solid storylines, we find this interwoven theme of self-sacrificing love. In Animal Farm, the main place we see this is through the character Boxer.

Boxer is a horse. Throughout the movie, he is portrayed as someone who is not very smart. He has trouble learning. However, he is very wise. He is a hard worker. All the rest of the animals look up to him and respect him. Boxer is always seeking to do what is right.

He enjoys hard work. He mentions multiple times throughout the movie that this is what he was designed to do. He loves doing hard work, and he is always seeking to do what is right.

In the beginning of the movie, Napoleon is trying to get Lucky on his side, so Napoleon gives Lucky an extra bucket of milk. At first, Lucky says, “No, this is wrong.” Then Napoleon gives him all these reasons why it is okay for him to have this extra bucket of milk, why he deserves it, and why the other animals do not.

Lucky goes to share the bucket of milk with Boxer, and Boxer is having none of it. He says, “No, this is wrong. We’re supposed to get what’s equal. I’m not doing this.” Then he encourages Lucky to give the extra milk to the younger animals who need it.

All throughout the movie, Boxer is loving others.

Then, again, this is going to be a spoiler, we see ultimate sacrificial love. Boxer is willing to sacrifice his very life for one of the human workers on the farm who is being crushed by the machinery brought in to build the dam. The human is getting crushed, and Boxer quickly throws a lasso around the machinery and pulls with all his might. In the process, he breaks his leg.

As Lucky is talking to him, Boxer explains that he was designed for hard work. He was helping the man out. Then he explains to Lucky that he is probably not going to survive because horses with broken legs do not survive.

Sadly, Lucky thinks he is helping Boxer, but he does not realize that Napoleon is not sending help. Napoleon has Boxer sent to the glue factory.

But we see that Boxer was willing to give his life to save that worker, even a worker who was working against the farm and the animals.

For this conversation, we can take our kids right to John 15:13, where Jesus is talking with his disciples and says, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

We can talk about how Jesus is the ultimate example of sacrificial love. Jesus gave his very life for us. He is perfect, pure, stainless, and without sin, and he gave his life for us condemned sinners.

We see a tiny shadow of this in the way Boxer was willing to give his life to save that worker on the farm.

Question 3: What Kind of Value Do Humans Have?

A third conversation we can have with our kids is, “What kind of value do humans have?”

That might sound a little strange, but let me explain.

In the movie, after Boxer is sent to the glue factory and Lucky realizes what has happened, he goes to the farmhouse and tries to get help from Napoleon. He says there has been a mistake. Boxer just broke his leg, but he is being sent off to be made into glue.

Lucky is told that Boxer was an old horse who was ultimately worth nothing.

So Lucky is told that Boxer is worth nothing simply because Boxer cannot do the same amount of work he did when he was younger. Therefore, he has no value.

Now, animal value and human value, according to the biblical worldview, are different. But when we are talking through this question with our kids and asking them, “What kind of value do humans have?” we can talk about how the animals in this movie are really representing humans. The movie is representing human forms of government and human behavior.

We can ask our kids, “Do humans have instrumental value or inherent value?”

This is a concept we explain in our Comparative Worldview curriculum here at Foundation Worldview. We explain to kids the difference between instrumental value and inherent value.

We show kids a picture of a bike and ask, “What are all the different parts of this bike?” We talk about the different parts of the bike and what the bike was designed to do. It was designed to get humans from one place to another more quickly than we could by walking.

Then we talk about how bikes are worth a lot of money. Bikes are usually at least $100, and some adult bikes are worth upwards of $2,000.

Then we show kids a picture of a bike that has been mangled in an accident. The wheels are off, the frame is bent, and the bike is beyond repair.

We ask, “This bike at one point was worth several hundred, if not several thousand dollars. But is it worth anything now?”

No. Maybe it is worth a few dollars for the rubber and metal to be used as scraps, but it is no longer worth a lot of money.

That is because a bike has instrumental value. It is an instrument to be used. Once it cannot be used in the way it was designed to be used, it loses its value.

Then we show kids pictures of humans and ask, “Is it the same with humans? Do humans lose their value if they are in an accident, or they can no longer think to the same capacity, or they are missing a body part? Do humans lose their value?”

No. Humans do not have instrumental value. Humans have inherent value. That means they have value simply because of who they are.

Two great passages you can take your kids to are Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 9:5–6.

Genesis 1:27 talks about humans being created in the image of God. It says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

You can ask, “Why do humans have value?” Because they bear God’s image. That is a value no one can take away from them, no matter what a human can or cannot do, no matter their abilities or disabilities, no matter how great they are or how small they are.

Another passage is Genesis 9:5–6. God says, “And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”

Here God is saying again that humans are of the greatest value. They have inherent value because they are made in the image of God.

We want our kids to see that the attitude that Boxer was an old horse who was ultimately worth nothing is an attitude that is all over our culture.

Think about the abortion debate. The argument is that the baby in the womb does not have value because the baby is not wanted. The mother does not want the baby, so the baby does not have value. Rather than looking at humans as having inherent value from the moment of fertilization, the idea becomes, “If this human is wanted, then this human is valuable. If not, then not.”

It is similar with assisted suicide. If a human is struggling from an incurable disease, the thinking is, “Might as well take their life now. They are not worth anything to society.” Or if humans are struggling with some kind of mental illness and do not want to go on, some treat it as not a big deal to take their life.

It is also similar to the way some people are simply cast aside, such as elderly people. Think about how few elderly people in nursing homes or rehabilitation centers are visited by friends and family or even strangers. We tend to view humans as having instrumental value rather than inherent value.

This is something we want to get our kids to think through.

Question 4: What Is True Freedom?

The final question we can talk through with our children is, “What is true freedom?”

This is a theme woven throughout the movie. The animals have gained their freedom once they take over the farm, and the question of freedom keeps coming up over and over again.

In fact, the movie closes with these lines, where Lucky narrates:

“We dreamed of freedom, but looked for it in the wrong place. We were never going to find it in a leader like Napoleon, or even Snowball for that matter. No one is always right. You know what is always right? Helping each other, not because we have to, but because we want to. That is true freedom.”

We want to talk with our kids through this quote and ask, “Is Lucky talking about freedom from something or freedom to something?”

A lot of times, when we talk about freedom, we are only talking about freedom from restraints. We are not talking about freedom to do something. In this quote, Lucky is talking about both. The animals were freed from the restraints of the humans, but he is also talking about being freed to help one another.

We want our kids to see that this is the biblical view. Freedom is both from something and to something.

In Scripture, we are told that we have been freed from the power and the punishment of sin. Those of you who have taken your kids through our God’s Good Design curriculum here at Foundation Worldview know that this is a whole lesson we have: Jesus has freed us from the power and the punishment of sin.

So we have been freed from those things. But the freedom does not stop there. We have been freed to do something. We have been freed to love God and love others.

This is summed up well in Galatians 5:13, which says, “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”

We want to talk with our kids about how freedom is both freedom from the chains of something that keep us bound and freedom to do something else.

True freedom is not freedom from all restraints. It is freedom within specific boundaries.

For example, when we think about the gender question nowadays, our culture views freedom as being freed from our biology. It says we can be whoever we want to be. But we know that taking away all boundaries, including good God-given boundaries, does not ultimately lead to freedom.

In this case, it views the body as inherently bad, as something that must be changed and manipulated, which ultimately does not lead to human flourishing.

Freedom is not the removal of all boundaries. It is the removal of inappropriate boundaries and then having choices or options within appropriate boundaries.

For example, as a female, I have a female body. I have female DNA. Even if I had certain parts of my body removed or added, I could not change the fact that in each of my chromosomes, there is an XX strand. I could not change that. I am female down to my very core.

However, within being female, God has given me so much freedom. I can choose the type of career I have. I can choose the type of friends I have. I can choose the type of church I am part of. I can choose the ways I spend my free time. I can choose the way I style my hair and the clothes that I wear.

That is freedom within certain boundaries.

We want our kids to understand that freedom is both freedom from inappropriate boundaries and then options to do things within appropriate boundaries.

I once heard an example from John Dickson at a summer institute for apologetics. He gave the example of skiing. He said that the first time he went skiing, someone asked if he wanted to take lessons. He thought, “I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to learn all these rules. I just want to be out there on the mountain. I want to be free.”

He was viewing freedom as not having any boundaries. So he went out on the mountain, and it was just okay.

The next time he went, he decided to take lessons. He learned the proper boundaries for skiing and the options he had within those boundaries. When he learned those proper boundaries, he was able to zip down the hill much more quickly than when he had no idea what he was doing.

As he was flying down the hill and knew how to control what he was doing, he thought, “This is freedom.”

That is freedom: doing things within the correct boundaries.

Those are the four questions we can walk through with our kids if we choose to take them to see this movie.

If you have enjoyed this movie review, you would probably love another podcast we have here at Foundation Worldview centered around the theme of one of the questions: Helping Your Child Understand That Love Is a Choice, Not Just a Feeling. We’ll make sure we put that as the next up in our YouTube feed so you can get that. And if you’re listening on a podcast platform, we’ll be sure to put the link there so you can check that out.

If this conversation helped you think more carefully about how to disciple your children through the stories they encounter, we’d love to have you join the Foundation Worldview email list for more biblical worldview encouragement and practical resources for your family.

That’s a wrap for this episode. As we leave our time together, my prayer for you is that no matter the situation in which you and the children God has placed in your care find yourselves, you would trust that God is working all things together for your good by using all things to conform you more into the image of his Son.

I’ll see you next time.