Review of Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008) by Chads. — 05 Oct 2008

Had this children's movie the ambition to take its theme of class-consciousness with just a modicum of gravity and levity, "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" might have challenged Chris Noonan's "Babe" for best of breed: the talking animal movie division.

If the high society lady's fully-grown children in Douglas Sirk's "All That Heaven Allows" bought their lonely mother a chihuahua instead of a television, the lapdog and the gardener's hunting dog might have suggested to Cary Scott(Jane Wyman) that she belongs with Ron Kirby(Rock Hudson).

"Beverly Hills Chihuahua" stands on the periphery of the 1956 melodrama that inspired Todd Haynes' "Far From Heaven", as Papi(George Lopez) the landscaper's dog, falls for Chloe(Drew Barrymore) the high-maintenance chihuahua, but the film is too timid to take that extra step.

Chloe's poolside friends drool over the hunky utilitarian canine because he's the forbidden fruit(the dog you don't take home to meet your master), but what would these pampered pooches say if the queen bee-otch(remember: a female dog is a bitch) declared her love for Papi.

Ostracization from dog society? Even more daunting: Imagine Chloe's dilemma if she had to choose between Papi and her owner Viv(Jamie Lee Curtis). One suspects that madame wouldn't want Chloe to birth puppies with an unregistered dog.

Although "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" is mostly informed by girly films such as "Clueless" and "Totally Legal", it does manage to smuggle in a reference to Rainier Werner Fassbinder's "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul"(German title: "Angst essen Seele auf") when Viv explains to Rachel(Piper Perabo) that Chloe doesn't like Berlin.

In the German reimagining of the Douglas Sirk sudser, it's not just class warfare, but also a divergence in race(she's German; he's Moroccoan), that keeps the lovers apart. Chloe, quite pointedly, is identified as a "gringo" by one of the stray dogs down Mexico way, while Papi unmistakably sounds Hispanic in nature.

Predictably, being around mutts, a rat, and inexplicably, an iguana, Chloe learns how the other half lives, and loses her elitist mentality. But how does one explain Viv's transformation? While Delgado(a German shephard voiced by Andy Garcia) regains his sense of smell which allows him to rejoin the police dog force, Viv's nose suggests a more tolerant worldview when she smiles and voices her approval about Chloe's new "earthy" smell.

Unless Viv is some sort of dog medium, and relives Chloe's adventures in Tijuana, the privileged woman's newfound well-roundedness seems largely unearned; completely out of the blue. Do you know what's Pixar's secret? They make children's films that go a little too far.

That's why they achieve transcendence. "Beverly Hills Chihuahua", on the other hand, plays out like "Far From Heaven" with a happy ending, sans the Brechtian distanciation.