Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Year of the Dog
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In Amores perros (2000), Academy Award nominated director Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel) related the lives of broken people to the various canines that surrounded them. His was a dark, grim, even gruesome comparison that strongly effected audiences.
With his directorial debut Year of the Dog, comic writer and actor Mike White, (Chuck and Buck, School of Rock, Nacho Libre) crafts a story around similar themes with a very different result. While White’s approach is far more subtle, (there’s no gore to speak of), the end result is no less profound.
Year of the Dog gets going in small, sleepy strokes as SNL alum Molly Shannon plays Peggy, a cheerful yet washed-out office assistant. Peggy’s only real source of joy in life is her childlike beagle Pencil, with whom she spends all her non-working time. Through a comedy of errors involving Peggy’s own negligence, a slap-happy neighbor named Al, played by John C. Reilly, and a poorly-stored toxic substance, Pencil meets an untimely demise.
In steps Newt (Peter Sarsgaard), an overly eager ASPCA employee, who convinces Peggy to adopt an aging German Shepard named Valentine. The dog’s problematic, as is the burgeoning relationship between Newt and Peggy. The two seem perfect for each other, and Peggy is game, but there’s something off about Newt. Could he be gay, asexual or worse?
Molly Shannon makes an impressive turn as Peggy. For the first half of the film, she embodies uncharacteristic passivity, and the film’s atmosphere echoes her ennui. The only real dose of energy comes from Peggy’s self-involved coworker Layla (Regina King), who raves manically about her plans to get her wayward boyfriend to propose to her. Peggy’s wide, toothy smile responds politely, but her weathered eyes tell a different story.
Then something in Peggy clicks. Newt may not be the romantic bolt of lightening that’s been missing from her life, but he does awaken Peggy’s sense of animal activism. Peggy becomes a vegan and opens a dog adoption clinic she runs out of her office. This “new” Peggy crosses the line in several dark yet comical ways; she even takes her niece to a chicken slaughterhouse which she deems “the holocaust.” When Valentine commits murder, what had before been steeped in banal quiet, escalates into traumatizing turmoil.
Though the familiar “geeky girl gets pushed too far and through a painful experience discovers her true self” storyline may certainly be uncovered here, there is something universal and moving about Peggy’s plight. A denial of, and then awakening to, the sense of being trapped in a life that doesn’t fit is certainly something to which many will relate. The absurdity of Peggy’s situation is underscored by the perfect existence of her brother and his wife, played by the always excellent Laura Dern. They are everything Peggy despises, yet they are the only human anchors in her life.
The film doesn’t quite end on the right note, but the journey is both hilarious and telling.
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