Tears and Laughter in the "Year of the Dog": a DVD Review

When you sit down to watch a movie billed as a comedy and starring Molly Shannon, you don't expect to find`yourself in tears`just a few minutes into the movie. As the movie progresses, you sit and you wait for the laughs, and the laughs never quite come. The movie "Year of the Dog" is not a movie you might expect from a former SNL star. It is not gratuitous or silly and there isn't a single appearance of Will Ferrell anywhere to be found.

The movie stars Shannon as a woman who lives alone save for her beloved pet beagle which she has named Pencil. She has pictures of Pencil all over her cubicle at work where she is a loyal and dedicated secretary who listens patiently as her boss whines about how much he is being paid, how much his bonus is and what team he is on within the work force. She also has a brother who is married to a woman who is doing everything to protect her children, including not letting her watch television and not explain what "death" means. Again, she is quiet, and loyal.>8

Her love for her dog seems to know no bounds. She`and Pencil sit and watch television together. She and Pencil fall asleep side-by-side every night. She and Pencil wake up together in the morning and the dog looks after her longingly as she drives away to work.

After establishing this very sweet and tender relationship, the filmmakers then have something truly horrible happen to poor Pencil and Shannon's character. Pencil gets into something when he is let out one night and Shannon finds him lying on his side the next morning whimpering pitifully. Her world proceeds to come down around hern

I have a dog. I realized,a t some point, that the character I was watching on the screen was very much like me. I wasn't sure if I should feel bad about that or not. I worry about my dog these days as she is now 11 years old as of this writing and, the last time I checked, she was not getting any younger. Suddenly seeing poor Pencil in this movie lying on his side as Shannon rushed the dog to the hostital drove all of that home to me.

So, yes, I cried at a damn movie about a woman with and obsession with her dog. I have talked to people who are very pro-pets and I have talked to people who could really care less about pets.` There is an interesting separation between these two`groups of people.` You see this in the movie. As her friends gather around her to try and perk her up, none of them truly understand just how profoundly devastated she is with the loss of her dog. She should just go out and find a man, they say. She should start dating. Maybe she should just get another dog.

This is also an attitude common amongst people who do not have pets. They tell you that it's just a dog as if the animal were a disposable lighter. Yeah, sure, it's nice, but once it wears out or if`it doesn't light just the way you want it to, you should toss it aside and get a new one as soon as possible, right?

Shannon's character goes through a kind of mental breakdown. She meets the man next door, played by John C. Reilly and in whose backyard she found the dying Pencil. Did he have anything to do with the dog's death? She learns he is a hunter, has a`collection of heads in his home along with a collection of knives. {28

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Then she meets Peter Sarsgaard's character while at the vet. He runs an organization that tries to adopt out dogs that are about to be put down because they cannot find homes at the animal shelter. He thinks there's a dog that she should adopt named Valentine. Valentine is a large german shepherd and he has behavioral problems because he was abused.

Shannon's character becomes a vegan. She becomes an animal rights activist.` She starts making donations to animal charities in her bosses name. She is having some issuesn

Does any ofhthis actually sound funny? I think that's the problem I had with the movie. After the intense and profound sadness right up`front, it was hard to think of anything that happened after it as anything but tragic. Are we supposed to laugh at this character because she was so involved with a pet? Does that make her actions after the death of her dog funny? `

There were e few moments when I smiled. There is a scene where Shannon's character`is driving home with a car filled to capacity with dogs. The reasons why those dogs are there I will leave for you to discover. However, I could not think that it was nothino more than a sad woman having a total nervous breakdown and I didn't find this scene overly funny enough to think of this movie as a comedy.

The acting is very good. Shannon shows a very impressive range with this movie. She has potential to be achingly funny and then achingly serious. I think she has tremendous potential to be a real star.

All of the supporting characters are interesting. Laura Dern plays the sister-in-law but is so frustratingly annoying that it is impossible to like her or the character she plays. I guess that means she played the character well.

So, do I recommend this movie? That is a hard question for me to answer. I found it a painful movie to sit through because I couldn't help but feel that I was`taking a glimpse into my own future. You, however, may find the movie touching and tender and light-hearted enough to enjoy. If you find laughing at someone who loves their dog so much they crack`up after the death the animal, you may also enjoy this movie.

As for me, well, I think I will continue to prefer my former SNL stars in movies that star Will Ferrell. I also plan on spending my money`buying movies like westerns over movies like this onen