Cinema Junkie by Beth Accomando

We may have to create a whole new film category for the ex- Saturday Night Live players who wants to drop their schitck and try to prove they have dramatic as well as comedic skills. Joining Will Ferrell ( Stranger Than Fiction ), Adam Sandler ( Click ), Billy Crystal ( My Giant ) is now Molly Shannon in Year of the Dog (opening April 27 throughout San Diego).

Now Im not trying to imply that comedic actors cant take a dramatic turn. There are many who have and done well. Robin Williams was great in T he World According to Garp and Eddie Murphy (before he became a family film guy) was great in 48HRS . But some of these recent dramatic turnsincluding Williams in Insomnia and Ferrell in Stranger Than Fictiondont seem to be testing their range but rather testing how low they can turn down their energy as if dull, bland and deadpan somehow revealed dramatic talent. Somehow boring has become equated with subtle dramatic acting.

Shannon, being the lone female of this recent bunch, has taken the low key approach and added the feminine thing of also taking off the glamorous make up and looking plain. For actresses, thats supposed to be the true sign of being serious about the workhence Oscars for the plain Jane turns of Charlize Theron in Monster and Halle Berry in Monsters Ball (and if you go back farther, Elizabeth Taylor in Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf) .

In Year of the Dog , Shannon plays Peggy Spade, a plain Jane who lives with a dog rather than a boyfriend and spends most of her time trying to make other people feel like their good or special or underappreciated. She doesnt seem to spend much time on herself, though. Its not much but shes happy. Then her dog abruptly dies and she suddenly realizes how lonely she feels and how dissatisfied she is with her life. So she ends up adopting an abused dog that bites her; forging checks from her boss to animal rights groups; going homicidal on her careless neighbor that she blames for her dogs death; and becoming a vegan.

Year of the Dog has to be the bleakest film about turning your life around and finding yourself. Everything about Shannons Peggy feels glum and listless, even the positive things. This is a comedy straining painfully to be a drama or a drama diligently trying to find humor in its pathos. This may also be the first positive portrait about the making of a vegan, and turning that into a quietly heroic tale. Or maybe I missed the point entirely and filmmaker Michael White was just making fun of everything in Peggys life.

White, who wrote Orange County, The Good Girl, Nacho Libre and The School of Rock, makes his directing debut here. He has problems finding the right tone to make the story engaging or compelling. Peggys transformation and her bizarre series of actions dont make much sense. It doesnt seem in her nature to forge a check from her boss to donate to a animal rights group. Did she do it because she couldnt afford it? Did she do it because she disliked the way her boss wouldnt let her collect signatures for PETA? It just doesnt make sense. Nor does her sudden vengeance for her neighbor who may have left snail poison out the night her dog died. (She makes a hunting reference that just doesnt play out.) It also doesnt seem in her nature to get drunk while babysitting her brothers overprotected kids. So if the focus of the filmPeggyisnt well-developed as a character, how can we be expected to buy into the story or care about what happens to her?

Michael White directs with the same lack of energy and suppressed enthusiasm that Peggy displays. Everything is shot in blunt, static, talking heads style framing. Everyone seems to just sit and stare into the camera, waiting for his or her cue to say something, as if each were sitting in a chair at a job interview. As a result we end up with long painful silences, waiting for something to happen. Ill give him credit though for letting Peggy avoid the clichs of the single femme storyline. She ends up not needing a man or a woman or even a dog to go on with her life and be happy.

Year of the Dog (rated PG-13) is lucky to have a pack of dogs running through the film. They provide the only warmth and energy to be found. I also want to point out that Peggy inaccurately slams the film Babe for painting a rosy picture of animal life. The film actually contains a quite disturbing scene of Babes mum being led off to slaughter and throughout the film slaughter seems to loom on the horizon for Babe . So its no Disney fantasy about cute talking farm animals that live happily ever after. The fact that White doesnt even seem to know anything about the film hes referencing just reveals his lack of attention to the kind of details that make a film work.

Companion viewing: My Life as a Dog, Best in Show, Orange County mara chui
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Kimberly L.
October 26, 2007 at 03:48 PM
This is for Beth, the writer of the article... I would just like to give a little perspective here. I do understand the points that you brought up in the film. I really do. I was a meat eater for the first 20 years of my life. But having been a vegan and animal rights activist for 5 years, I must say that this mixture of emotions must simply be something that you cannot understand. I, however, related to Peggy's actions perfectly. No, I have yet to commit crimes in order to advocate, but believe me, that doesn't mean I haven't wanted to. When you truly get it, when that lightswitch goes off inside you and you can't turn a blind eye to the cruelty of the farm animal industry, you change. There become different priorities in life, and you see cruelty everywhere around you. It is just like the movie The Matrix, you are suddenly the only one around you who is "in the know:" and not going around like the world is full of only sunshine and daisies. You have taken that "pill" of truth, and there is no turning back. I have, with great self-control, yet to become fanatical about animal rights. I am only minorly obsessive. But I can certainly understand why a person as good-natured as Peggy would go through with the extreme actions that she did in the film Year of the Dog. Any vegan could probably relate to the idea of wanting a "hunter to know what it feels like to be hunted", like what happened in this movie. Thanks. Kim.

Beth Accomando
October 26, 2007 at 07:09 PM
Thanks Kimberly for your perspective. I think you may have more insight into the character than the filmmaker does and that's the problem I have with the film. It's not that someone could not behave like Peggy but that within the context of this single film, the filmmaker has to make me believe that the character he has created is behaving believably. That's where the film came up short. Thanks for posting.

Robin Hartman
October 26, 2007 at 09:58 PM
I found this movie to be amazing! Kudos to Mike White and to Molly Shannon. Not all movies are going to appeal to all people. This film was meant for true animal lovers...not just "pet lovers". LOVED IT!!!!!!!!! Robin

Chyna
December 05, 2007 at 07:06 AM
I see where u are coming from Beth but i think the over all message and the way the film conveys it can make up for the little quirks. i can COMPLETELY relate to this movie and Peggy.