Wiener-Dog
Directed by: Todd Solondz
Written by: Todd Solondz
Starring: Keaton Nigel Cooke, Tracy Letts, Julie Delpy, Greta Gerwig, Kieran Culkin, Connor Long, Bridget Brown, Danny DeVito, Ellen Burstyn, Zosia Mamet, Michael Shaw
Comedy - 90 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 29 June 2016
Written by: Todd Solondz
Starring: Keaton Nigel Cooke, Tracy Letts, Julie Delpy, Greta Gerwig, Kieran Culkin, Connor Long, Bridget Brown, Danny DeVito, Ellen Burstyn, Zosia Mamet, Michael Shaw
Comedy - 90 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 29 June 2016
I can feel a Todd Solondz film. You know how you can recognize a Wes Anderson film by the way it looks and a Quentin Tarantino film from the dialogue? I know I’m watching a Solondz piece when everything feels awkward, in your face, and brutally honest. Ever since Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995), Solondz has shown no fear in throwing some of the most atrocious subjects involved in the human experience at his audience; think pedophilia, rape, suicide, and schoolyard torture. There are no themes as stark as those in Solondz’s new film, Wiener-Dog; however, he continues to tap into particular human emotions such as despair, depression, and simmering hostility. Wiener-Dog is as peculiar and idiosyncratic as an indie film can be, a description fitting just about all of Solondz’s films, yet it will hold your attention throughout its dark comedy and uncomfortable truths.
Wiener-Dog is actually a film comprised of four separate sub-films. These vignettes only share one connection, a docile dachshund as she is passed from owner to owner. The adventures and travels of Wiener-Dog, who takes on various names from her caretakers, allow the audience to witness a slice of life, usually morose and unforgiving, of quite a diverse set of characters. The dog provides mostly comfort and a sounding board to her owners, but sometimes frustration if they are not committed to taking care of the canine.
Wiener-Dog is actually a film comprised of four separate sub-films. These vignettes only share one connection, a docile dachshund as she is passed from owner to owner. The adventures and travels of Wiener-Dog, who takes on various names from her caretakers, allow the audience to witness a slice of life, usually morose and unforgiving, of quite a diverse set of characters. The dog provides mostly comfort and a sounding board to her owners, but sometimes frustration if they are not committed to taking care of the canine.
Filled with a certain amount of satirical and philosophical comments on the human condition, the narrative feels at times as a stream of consciousness from Solondz’s pen. Take for instance Danny DeVito, playing a sad sack screenwriting professor named Dave Schmerz. Even him name sounds like phlegm. Schmerz cannot connect with his students, barely attempts to educate them, annoys his agent asking about his God-awful screenplay draft, yet he is mesmerizing. DeVito is an actor we are very familiar with playing a character we would never connect him to.
Another segment slyly refers to Welcome to the Dollhouse featuring Dawn Wiener (Greta Gerwig, Mistress America) and Brandon (Kieran Culkin). These are established characters from that earlier film, but do not worry if you’ve never seen it. There is nothing you will miss by not knowing the previous story; you will be able to deduce the past regardless. Gerwig and Culkin do not mimc the original characters but find their own connections to the emotions. This segment alludes to a mortality theme which pops up even more prominently in the last segment focusing on an old woman (Ellen Burstyn, The Age of Adaline) who imagines what she could have been.
The dog is merely a conceit. It is not a tale of the triumphs and tribulations of a dachshund. The wiener-dog functions as a prism giving us a sense of the world around her. The audience observes and stares at the completely unmasked inner lives and struggles of the momentary protagonists. Wiener-Dog is not a genre film as it is too satirically amusing for drama and too weighty for biting black comedy. It is a Solondz film; meaning, it is a haphazard, awkward plot full of characters who look nervous and out of place. I enjoy enduring another Solondz visit every few years; keeps things fresh. I wouldn’t want to live here though.
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