Just how ‘Todd Solondz’ is Todd Solondz’s new film Wiener-Dog? To answer that, we have to go through the Solondz movie checklist: is there a motley cast of miserable characters whose lives are vaguely connected? Check. Is Dawn Weiner in it, despite being dead in Palindromes (2004)? Check. Does the camera linger on grotesque imagery, longer than any audience has a right to expect? Check. Is the film shot with a grainy, washed out look reminiscent of Happiness (1998) and Welcome to the Doll House (1995)? Not this time, and despite the nonlinear plot, its cinematography might be its most confounding feature.
The protagonist of controversial and sporadic American indie-filmmaker Todd Solondz’s new film Wiener-Dog is a dog — a sausage dog, to be exact. The plot follows its directionless wanderings and the various people who take it in. First, there’s the upper class Dina (Julie Delpy) and Danny (Tracy Letts), the son of whom (Remi, played by Keaton Nigel Cooke) takes on the dog and gives it the titular name.
Before the dog is put down for spraying diarrhoea on the spotless kitchen tiles, Dawn Wiener (Greta Gerwig) kidnaps him and takes him on a roadtrip with old high school friend Brandon (Kieran Culkin). Dawn (who was teasingly called ‘Weiner Dog’ in Solondz’s first feature, Welcome to the Dollhouse) dubs him ‘Doodie’. After a brief and almost fatal stay with miserable professor Dave Schmerz (Danny Devito), Weiner Dog’s final owner is a bitter old woman (Ellen Burstyn) who gives him the charming moniker ‘Cancer’.
For this film, Solondz worked with cinematographer Edward Lachman, whose resume includes sleek, high profile pictures like Carol (2015) and The Virgin Suicides (1999). He gives the film a polished look, which at the beginning works well, as Solondz manages to skewer the emotional dysfunction of the ultra-rich. When the film goes on the road, visiting bland suburban environments, hanging out with drug dealers and lingering on Greta Gerwig’s blissfully bored face, the polished look begins to clash with the film’s nihilism and its offbeat sense of humour. These kinds of themes better fit a film with the gritty, VCR-like cinematography of Happiness — the kind of movie you might discover had fallen behind your TV cabinet, which you can’t even remember owning a copy of.
Still, this is a funny and at times deeply affecting film, probably one of the funniest American comedies of the past few years. It weaves a quietly despondent theme of mortality and aging, while also proving that both Greta Gerwig and Danny Devito were born to star in a Todd Solondz movie.
– Tom
Tom Bensley is a freelance writer in Melbourne who reviews anything he attends, watches or reads. It’s a compulsion, really. Follow him @TomAliceBensley.
Wiener-Dog played at the American Essentials Film Festival. It does not yet have an Australian release date.
For more information on the American Essentials Film Festival, check out The Plus Ones guide.
