SNAPSHOT
From director Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness), Wiener-Dog is a dark, starkly funny story of a single dog and the many different people she touches over her short lifetime. Man’s best friend starts out teaching a young boy some contorted life lessons before being taken in by a compassionate vet tech named Dawn Wiener. Dawn reunites with someone from her past and sets off on a road trip. After leaving Dawn, Wiener-Dog encounters a floundering film professor, as well as an embittered elderly woman and her needy granddaughter—all longing for something more. Solondz’s perversely dark comedy offers an appallingly honest look at the American experience, brought to life by its all-star cast. (synopsis via Coming Soon)
Whoever thought that you could use a daschsund to hold a mirror up to contemporary society and expose all its cracks, fissures and unhappiness?
Well acclaimed director Todd Solondz for one and according to Variety, he, and the dog of course, pretty much nail their eviscerating portrayal:
“The proverbial dog has its day — a day of misfortune, indigestion and possible death, but a day nonetheless — in Wiener-Dog, the eighth and perhaps most blithely eccentric feature to date from Todd Solondz. A wandering short story compendium, bound by deadpan musings on mortality and the presence of one winsome Dachshund, this elegantly wrought oddity appears at the halfway mark to be heading into uncharacteristically hopeful territory for Solondz — until a toe-tapping intermission marks a reassuring plunge into abject despair. Students of the filmmaker’s exactingly composed mise-en-thropy will revel in the new pic’s freezing wit, jaundiced societal observation and inventive star casting, feeling the human ache in its glassy delivery. The unconverted will remain bemusedly in their camp, though all should agree that the eponymous pooch is now an uncontested winner in the ‘most lovable Todd Solondz character’ sweepstakes.”
Sure the subject matter is bleak and dark and no one really ends up getting what they want, but then that’s what brave dissections of the underbelly of civilisation normally end up feeling like.
After all, we spend an inordinate amount of time window dressing the hell out of otherwise bland, featureless lives, and even if we are happy to an extent, there’s always this nagging question of whether we could have more or whether we’ve missed out in some way.
A kind of deeply-existential FOMO if you will.
Granted these kind of psychic deep dives are not to everyone’s taste but in the hands of someone as incisive and talented as Solondz, there’s going to be something for anyone willing to hang around to see what lies behind the Wizard’s curtain of civilisation.
Especially if you’re happy to let a hapless dachshund be your guide.
Weiner-Dog opens 24 June 2016 in USA.
This sounds excellent. Todd Solondzs certainly likes to keep his audience at the edge of what’s comfortable but I like it. The cast sounds great, too.
He’s a clever guy. I love the fact that he tries to be so different and imaginative and yet manages to still be profound. A very cool filmmaker