The BRWC Review: Wiener-Dog

7th August 2016

Wiener-Dog is directed by Todd Solondz. It follows a daschund and the impact it has on characters in different interwoven stories that make up this film. The first story is the strongest. Although Ellen Burstyn in story three steals her slot with cancer and that’s it. It is a poor imitation of The Gun (From 6 to 6.30pm) by Vladimir Alenikov that follows the journey of a gun through several stories of people who want it and have to have it for their own personal reasons. Whereas as this Wiener-Dog is billed as a comedy when what it is one of those intellectual comedies that really wants to be a deep intellectual metaphor for life itself that leaves you thinking can you even be arsed to try and understand.

It is produced by Annapurna Pictures – maybe you aren’t familiar with the name but you know the films – Zero Dark Thirty, Hero, The Master and then there are others that just aren’t very good. What do they all have in common money. The issue is sometimes you have so much money to produce films and can obtain high profile actors that you overlook the necessity of good editing and a script doctor both of which this ensemble piece of Wiener-Dog absolutely needed.

The cast of Wiener-Dog is stellar: Danny Devito, Ellen Burstyn, Greta Gerwig, Julie Delpy but even they cannot save this poorly edited ensemble piece.

Short stories are fantastic but rarely work when transposed to the medium of film. Todd Solondz’s earlier film of Happiness did but in this film the shocks felt exhausted, the jokes bloated and the dog wasn’t even the same dog throughout so it went from a living creature to a metaphor for what I still don’t know.

Go and see this if you like ensemble pieces and meta type films otherwise avoid as it’s just not that funny.

Wiener-Dog is released on 12 August 2016.

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