Dear Cesar:
Like so many others, I have marveled at your gift. Even if I didn’t have dogs, I’d watch your TV show, “Dog Whisperer With Cesar Millan” on the National Geographic Channel. It reminds me of the year I spent tuned into Penelope Leach’s show on child-rearing even though I didn’t have kids.
I’m not writing you today about Riley and Grace, the canines in my house. I am calling on your gift as a whisperer of humans too.
I have this friend Peggy.
Well, she feels like a friend because her creator, writer-director Mike White, is good at imagining the gnarliness of human beings. And Peggy, played by Molly Shannon, is an awkward, beautiful soul.
Early in “The Year of the Dog,” she loses her best friend, her beagle, Pencil.
What happens to Peggy after this death in the family is the stuff of bitter comedy and a sweet-strange conversion. Her life teeters on disaster and the possibility of personal peace.
This is White’s first outing as a director. I wish that were not the case, because “The Year of the Dog” might have been amazing. Instead, it’s a dear mutt.
White’s written many an intriguing indie, including the disturbing “Chuck & Buck” and “The Good Girl,” both directed by Miguel Arteta. He also wrote the “The School of Rock” and “Nacho Libre.”
With a list like that, you can see why it’s easy to feel tender toward Peggy. White’s good at outcast characters who have edges.
When we meet Peggy, she’s watching Pencil run around at a dog park. Her look isn’t a smile, exactly.
Peggy has a habit of smiling that takes her upper lip above the gumline. It looks forced. Not because she’s condescending, but because she’s trying so hard to be present. Being attentive when you’re wounded, lonesome and could use a little attention of your own is demanding labor.
Peggy’s other best friend is Layla. The wonderful Regina King does serious “girlfriend” duty here. By that I mean she’s the vibrant black woman who gets to advise her meek friend, “Girl, you need to get a man” or “Girl, maybe Pencil died so you could find love.” Layla’s own love is a cad.
Most of the humans in this movie are uncomfortable in their furless skins. There’s Peggy’s boss (Josh Pais). He has the look of someone in need of a few spoonfuls of Metamucil.
Then there’s Newt (Peter Sarsgaard). A pet adoption specialist with his own invisible, burdensome baggage, he hooks Peggy up with a handsome German shepherd. But will he and Peggy hook up?
Peggy’s neighbor Al isn’t miserable. Far from it. Played with fine, dim wit by John C. Reilly, he’s sort of kind (for a hunter), definitely clueless and possibly the catalyst of Pencil’s demise.
Laura Dern and Thomas McCarthy are Peggy’s sister-in-law and brother, Bret and Pier. Good gosh, that Dern is frightfully funny as a overprotective suburban mom of two. Those children might as well be encased in the plastic bubble.
One of the things that impresses about the filmmaker is that his empathic gift can be a bit harsh. Fondness feels like veiled contempt, or vice versa.
For instance, when Peggy goes berserk, fueled by too many online forays into animal cruelty websites, some will think her pathetic, if not crazed.
What is original about “The Year of the Dog” – and makes me wish that White had let an ally direct his shaggy-dog-owner tale – is that there aren’t many American films that take seriously a conversion experience. (One of the most disquietingly fine remains Michael Tolkin’s “The Rapture.”)
Arriving at a glen of clarity can require a rough emotional trek. A smartly harrowing moment comes when Peggy takes her niece and nephew to a farm-animal sanctuary, then decides they need to go to the chicken farm down the road, too.
You get a hint of Peggy’s melancholy sojourn when she tells her cul-de-sacked bro and sister-in-law that she’s a vegan and how good it is to have a word to describe herself.
This brings me to why I’m writing you, Cesar.
Peggy used Pencil as an extension of self. Maybe even a substitute for self. Like that relationship, the movie isn’t really about the dog. It’s about people fixing, or trying to fix, themselves.
Indeed, the cool thing about “The Year of the Dog” is that in paying attention to the lovers of dogs, it doesn’t anthropomorphize our four-legged pals.
Is it possible for a movie to anthromorphize humans?
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com.
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“The Year of the Dog”
PG-13 for some suggestive references|1 hour, 45 minutes|SHAGGY-DOG DRAMEDY|Written and directed by Mike White; photography by Tim Orr; starring Molly Shannon, Laura Dern, Regina King, Todd McCarthy, Josh Pais, John C. Reilly, Peter Sarsgaard|Opens today at area theaters.
