MOVIE REVIEW: 'Year of the Dog'


Movie review in the April 27 Oregonian....




In mainstream comedies, when a person with no personality and a dull job "wakes up" and takes charge of his or her life, it's usually a cathartic experience filled with romance and rewards. (See: "Office Space," "Stranger than Fiction," that horrible Russell Crowe movie where he "finds himself" in Provence, &tc.)

The deadpan "Year of the Dog" dares to ask what happens when a person "wakes up" … and becomes a dogmatic nut case.

When we first meet middle-aged office drone Peggy (Molly Shannon), she's defined by precisely two qualities: her ability to listen blankly to her friends' idiotic problems, and her lonely-woman's love for her adopted puppy, Pencil.

"I've always been disappointed by people," she says. "I've always been able to count on my pets."

Then writer-director Mike White (writer of "Chuck & Buck," "The Good Girl" and "The School of Rock") rocks Peggy's world. Pencil dies of toxic poisoning, and Peggy develops a life-quaking crush on the vegan activist (Peter Sarsgaard) who's training Pencil's less-adorable replacement.

Peggy becomes a vegan herself: "It's nice to have a word that can describe you," she says. However, her newly unleashed passion brings out the "cruel" in "cruelty-free." By film's end, she's taken reckless plunges into animal hoarding, single-minded activism and light embezzlement. And the world smacks her for trying (however ham-fistedly) to engage it.

"Year of the Dog" is a rough little comedy of tone. White, making his directorial debut, asks if the search for self is still heroic when the discoveries are unpleasant. He takes his cues from filmmakers like Todd Solondz and Jill "Clockwatchers" Sprecher -- finding dark humor in hopeless moments, regarding his cast of fools with a detached eye. And on its own dry, minor-key terms, the movie works. (Though I did find the denouement too tidy and punch-pulling, given Peggy's mental bender.)

Shannon, best-known for her "Mary Katherine Gallagher" Catholic-schoolgirl character on "Saturday Night Live," is shockingly good in a tough, un-pretty role. (Watch for one sad, perfect little moment where Peggy explains why she's still single to her gun-loving neighbor [John C. Reilly] without uttering a single coherent sentence.)

Surrounded by a strong cast, including Laura Dern as Peggy's insufferably protective sister-in-law, Shannon holds her own -- making you care about as much as you could for a person written to go from a cipher to a loon with little redemptive tissue connecting the personalities.
_____

B; 97 minutes; rated PG-13 for some suggestive references.

A nobody awakens (The Oregonian, April 27, 2007)

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Posted: Fri - April 27, 2007 at 12:00 AM        

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