Wiener-Dog
Description
To devoted fans of proudly unconventional filmmaker Todd Solondz, it will hardly come as a surprise that his latest darkly comic exploration of modern man’s failings and flailings dispenses with any cheap sentimentality. True to his unique, discomfiting vision, Solondz once again shocks and awes in this drama that strings together vignettes anchored around the misadventures of an adorable dachshund. With this, his eighth feature, Solondz’s jaundiced view extends not just to humans, but canines, too. In these unpredictable tales, jarring behavior and events tangle up a gallery of characters—from a young cancer- urvivor (Keaton Nigel Cooke) coping with overbearing, self-involved parents (Julie Delpy and Tracy Letts) to an unhinged screenwriter (Danny DeVito),who is finally going to get noticed for all the wrong reasons to a crabby grandmother (Ellen Burstyn) full of regrets for her life. Greta Gerwig appears as a grownup version of Welcome to the Dollhouse‘s Dawn Wiener, calling forth memories of Solondz’s notorious breakthrough while underlining that his twisted humor and dim view of the human condition remain intact. —Randy Myers
Todd Solondz’s breakthrough feature Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) won the Sundance Film Festival’s Dramatic Grand Jury prize and Berlin’s C.I.C.A.E. Forum of New Cinema award. His next film, Happiness (1998), won the Cannes Film Festival’s FIPRESCI Prize. Among his other features are Storytelling (2001), Palindromes (SFIFF 2005), Life During Wartime (2009) and Dark Horse (2011).
Film Details
Year 2015
Runtime 90
Country USA
Director Todd Solondz
Producer Megan Ellison, Christine Vachon
Writer Todd Solondz
Editor Kevin Messman
Cinematographer Edward Lachman
Music Nathan Larson, James Lavino
Cast Greta Gerwig, Kieran Culkin, Danny DeVito, Ellen Burstyn, Julie Delpy, Zosia Mamet