It's tough being a Todd Solondz fan. His second feature, Happiness, was a masterpiece. Since then everything’s been a bit patchy.
Wiener-Dog is no exception. Made up of four stories, all involving a brown dachshund whose delicate stomach can’t handle granola bars, it’s impeccably filmed by Ed Lachman. Is Lachman phased by diarrhoea? No, he gives it a luminous sheen.
The movie is also full of cheeky musical interludes and bleakly hilarious lines that expose middle-class hypocrisy (and human confusion, in general). Thus, a weary mum (Julie Delpy) justifies getting her child’s dog spayed by inventing a narrative about squirrel-rape. Later, a junkie (Kieran Culkin) holds forth on why his mentally handicapped brother had to get the snip.
Both Delpy and Culkin are superb and ensure their characters earn as much sympathy as scorn. Elsewhere, though, the actors wobble (young Keaton Nigel Cooke has magnificently languid eyes but is a natural born amateur) and Solondz’s own writing becomes lazy. Taking potshots at Linklater’s Boyhood is brave. Mocking shallow Hollywood agents and pretentious installation artists, not so much.
Meanwhile, although it’s fun (in the second segment) to catch up with characters who appeared in Solondz’s debut, Welcome to the Dollhouse, it’s also depressing. Greta Gerwig stars as our old friend geeky Dawn Wiener, and although she is her usual nuanced self she has nothing of importance to do. Solondz loves revisiting his creations (he did it in Life During Wartime and, glancingly, Palindromes). Alas, he never improves on the originals.
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Cert 15, 88 mins
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