This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 at 6:11 pm and is filed under Drama, Dramedy, Y. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Year Of The Dog (2007) **
Director: Mike White
Starring: Molly Shannon, Laura Dern, Regina King, Thomas McCarthy, Peter Sarsgaard, Josh Pais, John C. Reilly
Mike White, the writer of Nacho Libre and School of Rock, takes his first stab at directing with this PETA propaganda film that starts out as a light, romantic drama, but takes a hard right into…into what? Dark comedy? Maybe, but its not funny. Romance? No, the romance vanishes? I guess all we have left is a drama about obsession, that is frustrating to watch. Anyway, the characters here are interesting enough and the story starts out okay, before it veers off into the ditch. The ending is manipulative and unimpressive.
Molly Shannon, of Saturday Night Live fame, is Peggy, a lonely, but content, office worker whose life is cracked by the sudden death of her little dog (he is a very cute dog). These leads to romantic possibilities with a couple of men including her next door neighbour, Al (Reilly) and Newt (Sarsgaard). As these peter out, however, she slowly becomes more and more absorbed with animal rights and saving pound-incarcerated pooches. This leads her to make some very controversial decisions that threaten her stable, little life.
Now, I love animals – all kinds of animals, and, though I often do not agree with the views and actions of organizations like PETA, I am sympathetic to their feelings. Year of The Dog started out as an unusual, little animal lovers romantic comedy like Must Love Dogs crossed with Amelie, but as Peggy turned more and more extreme in her views and actions, I began to resent the opinionated tenor of what I had expected to be light entertainment. PETA supporters, here is a movie just for you.
