Review of Dogging: A Love Story (2009) by Carl B — 18 Dec 2009

A slapdash assemblage of talking heads, lairy nightvision lo-jinks, tedious scenes involving chatrooms, and an apparently sincere romance that doesn't involve middle-aged men with their trousers round their ankles ruining their eyesight by attempting to peer through steamed-up windscreens.

Ellis, a better director than this, clearly wants to make a movie about Newcastle and its young folk, and some of the characters - the loping, persistent hoodie; a ginger estate agent, roaring around in his company Mini Cooper - ring oddly true.

Somebody else, though - sensation-seeking producers, perhaps - wants bawdy in-car romping. The result falls into that grand tradition of British sex comedies that aren't remotely erotic (and not much funnier): dogs mounting one another at a city-centre bus stop, two men discussing the trim on a Nissan Y-reg, and some furtive groping over an office photocopier is pretty much as good as it gets.