Diane Keaton, Christopher Plummer and Zac Efron in Dog Movies
Hollywood Finds Dogs Irresistible
By: Susan Hall - Apr 24, 2012
In one week I saw three dogs: My Dog Tulip, Darling Companion and The Lucky One. Or is that movies about dogs? We pause to contemplate whether it's paws up or paws down.
Describing relationships with our canine companions is thought to be a surefire show biz success.
J.C. Ackerley was a well-known British literary figure. His memoir My Dog Tulip about his beloved pooch leads the New York Review of Books classical book list in sales. But My Dog Tulip is one of the strangest movies I have seen.
As a dog owner I too am familiar with all the ins and outs of excrement, marking, scents, erotic desire and focus on the anal area. That was not what preoccupied me about my cats and dogs, however.
In the animated film based on the memoir, the voices of Christopher Plummer, Lynn Redgrave and Isabella Rosselini intrigue. However, the incessant harping on the anal area theme left me thinking that the enterprise was simply code for the author's sexual preferences and as such not very interesting.
The Morgan Library was showing the film in conjunction with their exhibit 'In the Company of Animals." Lawrence Kasdan's new film Darling Companion picks up on this theme. We have not heard from this great film director in nine years. With Diane Keaton, Kevin Kline, Dianne Wiest, and Richard Jenkins in action, who could resist. The first half of the film is vintage Kasdan: Sharp insights expressed in sharp dialogue, entering scenes at the last possible moment and exiting them as soon as they can be left behind. The pace is pitch perfect and delightful.
Soft chuckles accompany the draw of animals for humans. Keaton spots a stray by the roadside and goes to the rescue. She rescues her overly academic daughter as well. The vet they take the dog to is a handsome as can be. Dog, mother, daughter and vet all fall in love with each other.
Not to spoil the upcoming proceedings, until the dog called Freeway seals the deal and daughter marries vet, the film sings. When the dog gets lost the film also wanders off.
Why Kasdan decided to say that the film was set in Colorado and then filmed in Utah is a mystery. Pedantic viewers like mysell immediately realize that any filmmaker would shoot the white peaks on the exterior of Denver’s airport. Moreover, there are no scrubby hills to be seen on Route 70 from the airport to Denver. Flying into an airport like Telluride, however, is a hara-kari experience unlike any other. It is certainly unlike the flight away from the family's vacation home in this film.
Sad because based on The Big Chill and Grand Canyon one expects more from Kasdan. Deeply, the film is about ‘seeing,’ but you don’t see this as it is presented.
The Lucky One is another matter. Everything works out all right in the real world or an alternate universe in Nicolas Spark's successful novels. Blythe Danner is witty and wise as grandma. But I have no idea what the draw of the other two principals is, except as eye candy. However, if you feel like an evening out 'down home' amidst the bayous and hanging moss, you couldn't find a better place than sitting through this film.
The film is beautifully shot. The real eye candy is the scenery. For those who know the outcome from the gitgo, looking forward to the next gorgeous shot may be enough.
Well, where do dogs fit into this one? Beautiful Beth runs a kennel. An itinerant ex-Marine, wracked by memories of Iraq, ends up working there. Dogs are both bait and background but do not figure prominently in the story arc.
All to say that darling companions may get people to buy movie tickets, but these three films are just going to the dogs. Woof.