What happens when you send random people around Toronto in animal suits to offer free hugs? How do people react? How do the people wearing the suits react? That’s what director Ingrid Veninger sets out to explore.

Leo, a struggling teacher, is inspired by a video of the Bunny Project, where he put his 8 year old son in a bunny costume on a street corner to ask for hugs. But now his son is grown up, skipping school and smoking pot. This is Leo’s attempt to go back to how things used to be, and he gets his acting students to try it for themselves.

The class are the usual rag tag band of misfits, with some interesting twists on the archetypes. I would have liked to see more of Matteo (Lindsay Owen Pierre), but he spends the majority of the film hidden behind an animal mask. The amount of focus on some characters is my one biggest criticism.

On the whole, there isn’t much to commend outside of the surreal, almost Python-esque scenes of the cast in animal suits running around Toronto, hugging, handing out balloons and even breaking down in tears. Those scenes are amazing and almost worth the price of admission.

An interesting film, but flawed.

Donal O’Connor

Shown at this year’s TIFF13 : Toronto International Film Festival.