Year of the Dog Review
by Steve Rhodes (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)April 20th, 2007
YEAR OF THE DOG
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2007 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): **
YEAR OF THE DOG, written and directed by Mike White, is a message movie masquerading as a comedic drama in a thinly veiled attempt to hide its purpose. Molly Shannon plays a woman named Peggy, who frequently claims to be happy but is almost always morose. Even when with the dogs she loves so dearly, she is often quite sad.
You'll be pretty sad too, as you watch this art-house film, which is being given a wide, commercial release. I guess in order to make us understand the importance of the narrative, White has the characters speak directly into the static camera, thus turning dialogs into tedious monologues. When supposedly speaking to each other, characters, in close-ups, appear to be speaking just to us.
The story starts when Pencil, Peggy's precious looking little beagle, dies. She watches him dig out of her yard late one night, but just goes back to bed, figuring that he won't get into any trouble. When she awakes the next morning, she finds that Pencil is almost dead already, having ingested a garden pesticide in her neighbor Al's garage. John C. Reilly plays the friendly but slightly quirky Al, who brags that he likes to hunt animals on the endangered species list, since he wants "to get them before they're gone."
Peter Sarsgaard is pretty awful as Newt, a bisexual celibate who finds Peggy a new dog, a killer with attitude named Valentine. Peggy, a woman who hasn't had a date in a long time, lives for her dogs, eventually adopting 15 of them. With 15 dogs in a small house, all pooping, peeing and ripping up the inside of the place, her house is pretty unlivable and certainly unsanitary, but Peggy, while frowning, claims to be really happy.
A subplot has Peggy taking her little nephew and niece to a place where chickens are slaughtered, so Peggy can show them the evils of a non-vegan lifestyle. Needlessly to say Peggy's brother and his wife, played nicely by Laura Dern, aren't happy.
Another subplot concerns Peggy's workplace, where she stops bringing in donuts. Instead, she explains to her coworkers that no animals were harmed in the making of the cupcakes she brings, since no butter or any other animal products were used in the preparation of the cupcakes. She also steals from her boss and forges his signature on petitions, all to support PETA and similar organizations.
The undercooked script and flat direction makes a short movie feel like three hours. But, if you feel you need a lecture on animal activism and the importance of a vegan lifestyle, YEAR OF THE DOG does do it in a quasi-comedic fashion.
YEAR OF THE DOG runs a very long 1:37. It is rated PG-13 for "some suggestive references" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, April 20, 2007. In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
