If Love Actually and Marley and Me had a love child, Dog Days, out Wednesday, August 8, would be it. Five dogs and five storylines weave together the plot of the film, set in—you guessed it—the dog days of summer in Los Angeles.
Two news anchors (Nina Dobrev and Tone Bell) fall into an unlikely romance in the workplace after a classic adulterous discovery (the tell-tale lingerie revealing the tête-à-tête makes its appearance in the mouth of a dog); a barista (Vanessa Hudgens) finds meaning outside of her coffee career volunteering at an animal shelter with the archetype awkward-but-really-good guy (John Bass); a recent widow (Ron Cephas Jones of This is Us) bonds with the younger generation (Finn Wolfhard of Stranger Things) through a methodical search for a lost pup; a set of adoptive parents (Eva Longoria and Thomas Lennon) bond with their new child (Elizabeth Phoenix Caro) over a found one; and a deadbeat in a band named Frunk (Adam Pally) dog sits, thus developing some sorely needed responsibility.
This kind of movie usually relies on slapstick comedy à la Meet the Fockers (and what is a dog movie without a fart joke, really?). But alongside this typical comedic trope, a smarter, subtler humor is at work that makes Dog Days funny for both adults and children.
“[Dog Days] is sort of like a Pixar movie,” said director Ken Marino. “There are jokes in there for adults and there’s stuff for kids in there. And that’s the hope, that it’s for everybody and that everybody enjoys it . . . Maybe it will make you cry once or twice.”
And it does. In one poignant scene, a vet tech sings “Amazing Grace,” eliciting a genuine appeal to pathos. After a pointed pause that gives viewers a chance to pretend something is in their eye, he begins the second verse, employing humor by excess and a moment of comic relief.
Besides being well rounded, Dog Days has a kind of intellectualism. Vanessa Hudgens’s character finds a small Chihuahua named Gertrude, after poet Gertrude Stein. (She exclaims, “I love Gertrude Stein!”) Stein’s work—from an article published in Vanity Fair in 1934—even makes an appearance in the film with the quote: “I am I because my little dog knows me.”
Credit : Jacob Yakob / LD Entertainment
As a lesbian poet in the early twentieth century, Stein’s work is, unsurprisingly, concerned with identity. So rather than being dilettante, the Stein reference actually speaks to the major theme of the film—how our relationships with animals can help us become more ourselves.
Marino spoke to the appeal of Dog Days because “right now, it’s important to have movies where you can bring your whole family and escape the madness out there.”
But Dog Days is more than a family-friendly escape. It’s a story about the ways that our pets bring out the best in us. It’s a dog movie that even cat people will love.
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