Todd Solondz continues to make films that, upon my recommendation, causes me to lose some peers. All of his films are black comedies dealing with heavy issues in a reserved way. “Happiness,” my favorite film of his, focuses on an upper middle class family harboring dark secrets (such as sexual frustration/proclivities, depression/suicide, and pedophilia). What makes his films unique is that the comedy takes a backseat to the drama. Much like Stephen King, he is fascinated in peeling back the layers of suburban life and exposing it for the hypocrisy that it is. The humor comes from the shock value and raw honesty on display. It’s certainly not for everyone as I’ve learned the hard way, losing the respect of some over my recommendation of his filmography (though the joke’s on them for not listening to my descriptions and heeding my warning of their contents).
“Wiener-Dog” is no different. It starts out as a dark satire on inspirational dog films, then devolves into a commentary on Hollywood’s conventional death sentence. The former is far more intriguing and stays true to the titular canine, while the latter loses focus and repeats itself. The two don’t mesh well together, but come replete with enough dark humor to make them serviceable.
The film is broken up into multiple stories, all of which interweave through the passing of a wiener dog. His first home is that of an upper middle class family, where the mother (Julie Delpy) despises the notion of owning a dog, but succumbs to her husband’s (Tracy Letts) wishes to please their son (Keaton Nigel Cooke). One expects the typical canine shenanigans that eventually wins the hearts of the entire family, but instead are treated to the dog wrecking the joint, chewing up the furniture and crapping all over the place. The mother insists on putting the dog down and the father obliges.
The wiener dog is saved by Dawn Wiener (Greta Gerwig), a veterinarian’s assistant who sneaks him home. She meets up with a former class bully, Brandon (Kieran Culkin), and joins him on a trip to Ohio to break the news to his brother and wife (Connor Long & Bridget Brown) that their father has passed away. While this scenario still has a dark edge to it (seen in Dawn’s crippling low self-esteem and Brandon’s emotional detachment), there’s a sweetness to it. Brandon’s brother (and his wife) suffer from Down Syndrome, but it’s never played for cheap laughs. It’s handled with care and honesty, just as with the Farrelly Brothers, and the conclusion is Dawn giving them the dog to cope with their loss. There’s something uplifting in how, even with the darkest of viewpoints on humanity, Solondz can still see hope and kindness. As a result, this is just as heartwarming, if not more so, than the usual uplifting dog film schmaltz.
Then the film stops being a dark parody on those uplifting film and shifts gears to a commentary on Hollywood. The dog somehow winds up in the possession of Dave Schmerz (Danny DeVito), a failed screenwriter teaching college courses in New York. He’s been struggling to get his script sold for the past nineteen years, only making headway now after dumbing it down. His performance as an instructor has been brought into question, with him berating personal scripts of his students for not adhering to Hollywood convention. He eventually snaps and straps a bomb to the dog in the University’s building, finally giving the dog a purpose in this scenario.
The dog is rescued by the police and is eventually in the custody of an elderly woman (Ellen Burstyn) living out her final, painful days. Making her pain worse is her granddaughter, Zoe (Zosia Mamet), a struggling artist dating a fellow emotionally unstable artist, Fantasy (Michael James Shaw). The two are only visiting to obtain money to fuel their careers, though it’s clear Zoe is crying out for help. This is the final story in the film and it ends in the bleakest and heartbreaking of ways. Trust me when I say the finale isn’t for the weak of heart, especially among dog lovers (I myself struggled with it, which was the point).
I found the first two stories to be fascinating and brilliant, while the final two were lackluster and repetitive. Both have the same amount of dark humor, but it’s more befitting of the first two. The dysfunctional upper middle class family and the escapades of Dawn & Brandon (returning characters from Solondz’s “Welcome to the Dollhouse”) are rich parodies of the sentimental dog subgenre and their dark humor is in line with that. Julie Delpy explaining to her son the reason the dog needs to be fixed by regaling a fictional story about a dog raping another because it wasn’t fixed is hysterical because it plays against type. A bomb being strapped to the dog or Ellen Burstyn naming it Cancer to reflect her current state are only amusing because it’s a break from the monotony.
My main issue with the last two stories is that they’re as clichéd as the Hollywood conventions Solondz is attacking. Calling out Hollywood has become so overplayed that it’s a cliché in and of itself. Simply drawing attention to this proves nothing. The trick is to bring attention to it with style, like Nicolas Winding Refn did in “The Neon Demon.” Solondz doesn’t accomplish this, instead providing stories like “Happiness” Lite.
The strength of the first two stories and the dark humor throughout is enough for me to recommend “Wiener-Dog,” but only slightly. It falls off the rails rather quickly, losing sight of its dark parody elements. Had the film simply been the first two stories stretched out, there’s a possibility this could’ve been upper tier Solondz material. Having to wade through the weaker second half dragged it down to middle-of-the-road Solondz material.
Final Rating: B-