just watch it!

Good idea lost in the noise

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Looking at all the one star reviews here, you would think this movie assails mom, apple pie and the flag.In a way, it does. It is the most unabashed pro-animal rights movie I may have ever seen. It mocks every day Americans who don't care what happens to the chickens they eat or the dogs that become too inconvenient for them to care for. It mocks a hunter. It mocks office bosses in a way quite reminiscent of Office Space.Molly Shannon gives it enough comedic edge, but it isn't really a comedy. What she brings is a credible dramatic performance with a slight comedic edge.I'm not saying this film couldn't be better. it could have a somewhat more complex plot, but that's not its purpose. This film's purpose is to portray an animal rights activist whose life is overwhelmed by her convictions and she follows them. It's got a great cast, and it's certainly not a one or two star film.It will however offend conservatives, christians who believe they are the greatest dominant animal on earth, and have a god-given right to do anything they want with the animals 'below' them. It will also offend people who mock those who don't eat animals. For the record, I do, but I certainly empathize with the plight of animals in our world.I'm sure the scenes involving the hunter really send people over the edge. I would've been happy to see a more extreme outcome, but the movie treated its plot in a way that made the most sense.Anyway, if you have any empathy whatsoever with animal rights, you may find this movie quite cathartic actually. Now we just need a movie like this with climate change as its central topic.

I created an account on IMDB just to warn everyone how terrible this film is. Not only is the film extremely depressing, BUT not one, not two, but THREE dogs are killed throughout the course of the movie. To those "critics" that say this is a motivational film and that the main character finds herself, the main character legitimately goes off the deep end and should be in bankruptcy & jail. The main character steals money from her boss and literally has no repercussion. She gets her job back only to quit again. She may be touring the world for animal rights but who is paying for this?? She has no income and her house is trashed from adopting 15 dogs at once (and that's not even the craziest part of the story). She also attacks her neighbor with a knife, and doesn't get jail time. To whoever called this movie "heartwarming", you my friend are a psychopath. AVOID THIS MOVIE IF YOU EVER WANT TO EXPERIENCE HAPPINESS.

Peggy (Molly Shannon) is a friendly spinster working as an executive assistant. She lives a quiet life. Then her dog Pencil dies after eating some toxic material. Her best friend Layla (Regina King), brother Pier (Thomas McCarthy) and his wife Bret (Laura Dern) are all mildly concerned. Her neighbor Al (John C. Reilly) asks her out but she suspects that Pencil got poisoned by him. Newt (Peter Sarsgaard) works at the shelter and gets her to adopt an abused dog. She turns into a vegan and an animal rights advocate which causes her all kinds of problems.It's a little too quiet and a little too mannered of a movie. It has some quirks but it's not quirky enough. It's not funny. It's not dark enough to be interesting. It's not quite anything. It's too reserved and has too little energy. Sadly, it comes off as a little bland. The funniest scene is probably Peggy driving the car filled with dogs. The movie needs more of those moments. Mike White doesn't have the directorial skills right now to pull this off.

This is the story of an unhappy woman, her inability to find love or fulfillment in the world and her descent into being one of those crazy animal hoarders you see on the news. Oh, and did I mention it's a light hearted comedy?Peggy Slade (Molly Shannon) is the unhappy woman. She doesn't have a boyfriend and hasn't had one for a long time. At work, she's the assistant to a boss (Josh Pais) who is perpetually paranoid about his standing in office politics and talks to Peggy more like a therapist than an employee. She sees her friend Layla (Regina King) working hard to domesticate her immature boyfriend and get him to propose. When Peggy goes to visit her brother and sister-in-law (Tom McCarthy and Laura Dern), she's regaled with the horror stories of being the parents of two young children.There may have been a point when Peggy was living her life, but now she's just observing hers and everyone else's. She does have a little dog named Pencil that she pours all of her love into and while even that doesn't really make her happy, Peggy seems to have come to terms with what her life is. But then Pencil gets into the neighbor's yard, eats something poisonous, dies and Peggy loses her way. She reaches out again and again to find something that can recreate the unexamined stasis she and Pencil had forged in her unhappy life. First, it's her next door neighbor (John C. Reily), then it's the cute but romantically sterile guy who works for the SPCA (Peter Sarsgaard), then it's an abused dog named Valentine she tries to help, then it's the cause of animal rights before finally, desperately adopting 15 dogs from the pound to keep them from being put to sleep. All the while, Peggy becomes more and more unraveled, emotionally and physically, until she sinks into psychotically violent anger.As I mentioned, this is a comedy, even though the story as described sounds more tragic than humorous. There is a lot of funny stuff in Year of the Dog and it's a tender sort of humor. The film doesn't mock or belittle Peggy and the other characters. Well, it does poke a little fun at Peggy's next door neighbor because he's a hunter and at the mundane parental obsessions of her brother and sister-in-law, but those characters are also presented as the most emotionally healthy and well-adjusted people in the movie. The story's damaged and dysfunctional characters are treated with a gentle respect. We're able to laugh with those characters without them becoming the butt of the joke.Molly Shannon does a fine job as Peggy, giving a much subtler performance than you would expect given the rest of her comedy work. Shannon keeps an undercurrent of sadness constantly bubbling in everything Peggy does or says, without reducing her to pitiful, laughable wreck. Peter Sarsgaard gives a very well-measured performance as a man who seems more socially capable and functional than Peggy on the surface but who is deep down even more emotionally broken than she is. Josh Pais is also very good as Peggy's boss. He's the most overtly comedic character in the story but Pais never lets him become a caricature.The direction in this film is a bit odd. For most dialog scenes between two characters, the movie cuts back and forth between the characters talking directly into the camera instead of showing them talking to each other. It's a technique that's both intimate and somewhat alienating. You feel as though the characters are talking directly to you, the viewer. Yet, that makes it difficult to connect what's being said by one character with the effect those words are having on the other character. It brings you more into the story and takes you more out of it at the same time.Year of the Dog is a movie that's sad without being sappy and funny without being mean. Its ending is an almost total cop out that doesn't realistically deal with any of the themes and issues raised throughout the story, but it's very enjoyable up to that. If you're a dog lover and you're looking for a dog movie that isn't a children's story or a romantic comedy, this is the film for you.