In a summer full of suggestively named films, WEINER and SAUSAGE PARTY are joined by WIENER-DOG. Todd Solondz’s dachshund-sized tale takes a warm and sensitive approach to a very unconventional drama, in which four unrelated pet owners are connected via one loveable brown dog. Amidst some dark comedy and emotional back stories, WIENER-DOG brings together Ellen Burstyn, Kieran Culkin, Greta Gerwig and Danny DeVito, and teaches us that even small dogs have big hearts (and equally, why no dog should ever eat a granola bar).
The film opens with an introduction to the first owner, young cancer survivor Remi (Keaton Nigel Cooke) to whom Wiener-Dog has been gifted by his almost vacant parents. Offering a voice for Remi to socialise with, Wiener-Dog is well received into the household, although he’s caged at night. A combination of the necessity to spay Wiener-Dog alongside an unfortunate encounter with a granola bar sends the Dachshund to an animal hospital, where the second owner’s story begins.
Greta Gerwig portrays veterinary nurse Dawn Wiener, a character from Solondz’s WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE (1995) and she acts as the connection between the two films. Wiener-Dog ends up in Dawn’s custody and the pair set out on a road trip accompanied by Wiener’s high school peer (Culkin). A thoroughly enjoyable and unexpected false intermission follows, giving the audience no time to take a break from the feature. The story quickly resumes with the third quarter, which finds Wiener-Dog in the care of failing university professor Dave Schmerz (DeVito), who is short on life and in stature. We share a taste of Schmerz’ bad luck in life before, as expected, the baton that is Wiener-Dog is inevitably passed onto someone else.
The final owner of Wiener-Dog is the elderly but energetic Nana (Burstyn). Nana’s involvement with Wiener-Dog is the most abstract, and appears to be the shortest. This section focusses on interactions between Nana’s granddaughter, Zoe, and her recent and definitively artistic boyfriend, known as Fantasy. Wiener-Dog is used as a way for Nana to vent her narcissism, one example being the choice new name of ‘Cancer’; pairing receptively with the final moments of the film and echoing the opening story of the first owners. WIENER-DOG uses the character of the dachshund as a progression and link for the four owners, without interfering with character development or plot progression. Each owner’s story plays out independently from the next, the intermission breaking up any momentum – at times the dog even seems redundant. Nevertheless, the cast present an impressive range of performances which offer four well-rounded, discrete stories.
Possibly borrowing its aesthetic from films such as CAROL (2015), ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL (2015) and Gerwig’s earlier starring feature MAGGIE’S PLAN (2015), the film’s warmth and softness contrasts with the unfortunate nature of each of the characters, diluting the bleakness of the subject matter. WIENER-DOG brings together the stories of four unfortunate but very different people with humour and compassion, but the portmanteau structure is jarring, leaving WIENER-DOG somewhere between the comfortable, warm sofa and the miserable, cold doghouse.
httpvh://youtu.be/XBNKaQQYMWE