Review of Year of the Dog (2007) by Markb. — 07 May 2007

With all due respect to Lassie, Rin Tin Tin and Benji, the greatest movie canine of all time could hardly be anyone other than Toto from The Wizard of Oz. Consider: millions and millions of moviegoers, both committed and casual, recognize him by name from his one and only film, and Judy Garland sings "Over the Rainbow" (considered by the American Film Institute and many fans to be the greatest movie SONG of all time) specifically to him.

And yet, for the ten minutes (or less) that he's onscreen, Year of the Dog's Pencil the beagle offers Toto some very fierce competition! Pencil is the light in the life of Peggy (Molly Shannon), a sweet, kindhearted, eager-to-please but somewhat socially awkward homebody who's not much more than a background figure in the lives of her relatives, coworkers and friends.

(In fact, if a movie had been made about Peggy's numbers-obsessed boss Robin, her husband-hungry buddy Layla or her smug sister Bret and family, Peggy wouldn't even qualify as a supporting character; she'd only appear in one or two expository scenes and what we'd mostly see of her would be the back of her head.

) Pencil is the center of Peggy's universe, and vice versa; when Pencil dies accidentally early on, it's no surprise at all that Peggy's life will be totally shattered, because Peggy is for the first time forced to realize what she was only peripherally aware of before: that without Pencil, Peggy really HAS no life.

(When, later on, she relates her discovery that a certain very specific word is the first one she's heard that truly describes her, lumps simultaneously grow in throats all throughout the arthouse.

) I've always really liked Shannon, whose strangely endearing nervous energy made her SNL movies A Night at the Roxbury and Superstar a lot less of a viewing chore, but she's phenomenal here: without begging for sympathy or striking a false note, she negotiates all the steps from ripping your heart out to just plain scaring it out of you.

Shannon's work is to 2007 what Maggie Gyllenhaal's portrayal of a paroled substance abuser trying to reclaim her child was to Sherrybaby in 2006: a remarkably subtle, nuanced interpretation of a terrific woman's role that nevertheless could have, with the wrong actress, lent itself to all kinds of showboating and scenery-chewing but absolutely never does here.

(And unfortunately, the Motion Picture Academy will undoubtedly pay as much attention to Shannon's work as it did to Gyllenhaal's. C'mon, Oscar: Shannon manages to be utterly believable here in spite of the fact that in real life she's allergic to dogs! Doesn't she deserve some recognition for sacrificing for her art?) Mike White's script and direction are completely worthy of his lead actress: he satirizes the people in Peggy's world without ever demonizing them (even the boorish hunter who's her next door neighbor); he charts Peggy's journey from despair to emptiness to social involvement to fanaticism to madness to ambiguity with a mathematical precision that only seems casually observed.

..and his much-criticized "let's have everybody seem to talk to the audience" method of staging and camera placement isn't an indie affectation at all, but the absolutely perfect means to depict Peggy's relationship and status with her acquaintances: except in a handful of shots in which others share the frame with her, Peggy is perpetually isolated.

While her devotion to a cause is certainly admirable up to a point, it's hard not to wonder if (as is often the case with people who join extremist groups or religious cults) Peggy would've immersed herself so deeply into veganism and animal rights if, at the time she needed them so desperately, Layla, Bret or anyone else had taken an afternoon off to spend with her, or let her cry on their shoulder as long as she needed to, or just really listened to her.

The beauty of Year of the Dog is that even though its central themes largely and necessarily deal with how we treat or mistreat animals, at the end of the day it really made me want to treat PEOPLE with more kindness.