Wiener-Dog (15.)
Directed by Todd Solondz.
Starring Greta Gerwig, Kieran Culkin, Danny DeVito, Ellen Burstyn, Julie Delpy and Tracy Letts. 90 mins
The film industry is full of comedic inclined misanthropes but most of them manage to disguise their contempt for humanity and all its doings. Todd Solandz though wears his hate on his sleeve which is sort of admirable but hardly endearing. In the late 90s his dark opus Happiness (an ensemble comedy about masturbation, spree killing and paedophilia) seemed to suggest that he would be a major American alternative film maker but since then he's been beaten back into the margins. Wiener-dog isn't going to change that but it is funnier and more entertaining than you'd expect of such a sour world view.
Here Solondz is playing with the War Horse/ Yellow Rolls Royce trope, where the journey of a single object links various unrelated vignettes. Here, this is a very cute sausage dog who starts out in a kennel and moves between four owners. The trajectory is basically that of life itself – starting out with a young kid and moving through young love to late life disappointment. None of these vignettes really amounts to much but all of them have nasty, smirking laughs.
Being the misanthrope’s misanthrope is a hopeless title really because they make for such a lousy support group: in times of trouble you'll reach out your hand and they won't be there. Instead though a more than presentable cast has turned up to help him out, including Gerwig who can be convincingly upbeat in the most trying of circumstances. The most cynical character is played by Burstyn, who having been in The Exorcist and Requiem For A Dream, is much more obvious delivery system for Solondz's world view.
There is smugness to it sourness that is hard to take but is possibly balanced out by everything being driven by desperation and a fear of loneliness. The terrible secret of Wiener-dog is that it is trying to see the best in people; and failing miserably.
Directed by Todd Solondz.
Starring Greta Gerwig, Kieran Culkin, Danny DeVito, Ellen Burstyn, Julie Delpy and Tracy Letts. 90 mins
The film industry is full of comedic inclined misanthropes but most of them manage to disguise their contempt for humanity and all its doings. Todd Solandz though wears his hate on his sleeve which is sort of admirable but hardly endearing. In the late 90s his dark opus Happiness (an ensemble comedy about masturbation, spree killing and paedophilia) seemed to suggest that he would be a major American alternative film maker but since then he's been beaten back into the margins. Wiener-dog isn't going to change that but it is funnier and more entertaining than you'd expect of such a sour world view.
Here Solondz is playing with the War Horse/ Yellow Rolls Royce trope, where the journey of a single object links various unrelated vignettes. Here, this is a very cute sausage dog who starts out in a kennel and moves between four owners. The trajectory is basically that of life itself – starting out with a young kid and moving through young love to late life disappointment. None of these vignettes really amounts to much but all of them have nasty, smirking laughs.
Being the misanthrope’s misanthrope is a hopeless title really because they make for such a lousy support group: in times of trouble you'll reach out your hand and they won't be there. Instead though a more than presentable cast has turned up to help him out, including Gerwig who can be convincingly upbeat in the most trying of circumstances. The most cynical character is played by Burstyn, who having been in The Exorcist and Requiem For A Dream, is much more obvious delivery system for Solondz's world view.
There is smugness to it sourness that is hard to take but is possibly balanced out by everything being driven by desperation and a fear of loneliness. The terrible secret of Wiener-dog is that it is trying to see the best in people; and failing miserably.
