Starring former Saturday Night Live cast member Molly Shannon, The Year of the Dog was a sad and poignant movie. Shannon plays an old maid, a 40-something woman who has given up on dating and getting married. She is a seemingly independent woman; she owns a home and a car, and works as a secretary at a company near her home in California. And when she’s not at work, Shannon’s character, Peggy, spends all of her time with her totally adorable Beagle, Pencil. We barely have time to get attached to Pencil, as he dies about five minutes into the movie.
The rest of the film is about how she copes with her loss, and it is a major downward spiral into emotional instability. Firstly, most of the people in Peggy’s life seem to have toxic personalities and are very unsupportive. She has friends at work, and a relationship with her brother and his wife and children. Her “friends” at work seem self-centered, and instead of relating to Peggy about her loss, or at least giving her time to grieve, they try to distract her by encouraging her to go out and find a man, go see a funny movie, and basically forget all about her poor little dog who died only that morning.
Trying to move on, Peggy goes on a horrific date with her neighbor, played superbly by John C. Reilly. The man’s house is decorated with deer and moose heads mounted on the wall, and as a child he even shot his own dog accidentally during a hunting trip. Peggy then adopts a new dog, a huge German Shepard who was abused and has behavioral problems. She starts falling in love and becoming heavily influenced by the dog’s trainer, who is vegan, and gay (though she heartbreakingly doesn’t find out about the latter until later in the film). Peggy decides to become a vegan, starts volunteering for the ASPCA and learning about non-profit organizations that rescue farm animals from being slaughtered. This is where Peggy starts going crazy. After being romantically rejected by her dog trainer, she realizes that she has always been disappointed by people, and relates to animals much better than people. And it’s sad. Don’t get me wrong; I love animals, especially dogs. I have never had a dog, but I love it when you pass them on the street, and they smile at you, or you can tell that they’re feeling sad. They have feelings just like people, and give so much love.
So Peggy starts stealing money from the company she works for to donate to organizations like PETA. She has a harder and harder time relating to people, her new dog mauls another dog and is euthanized, she is fired from her job for stealing, and she adopts 15 dogs from the pound to rescue them from being killed. Her house becomes a disaster area, and there is Peggy, lost in the chaos, but loving the company and love her house full of rambunctious dogs gives her.
In the end, after attempting to murder her neighbor, who she believes killed Pencil by leaving slug poisoning out, Peggy joins a group that protests animal cruelty, and we see her on a bus, headed towards her future.
Though her character was an extreme example, I think many of us fear becoming “the crazy cat lady,” or being old and alone, and not being able to relate to people.
There was a lovely overdubbed monologue at the end of the film, where Peggy talks about love. How some people love other people, some people love power, or money, or material things. But how she loves animals, and knows it’s her calling to save as many as she can. I didn’t cry at the end of the movie. But I did cry in the car on the way home, thinking about love, and wondering, at the end of a relationship, or when someone you love dies, where does the love go? It’s still inside of you, aching to come out, to be expressed, even if the person, or dog you love is gone. So maybe all of us become a little bit like Peggy. We try to find some other way to express that love, to put it back into the world, where it can do some good.
The rest of the film is about how she copes with her loss, and it is a major downward spiral into emotional instability. Firstly, most of the people in Peggy’s life seem to have toxic personalities and are very unsupportive. She has friends at work, and a relationship with her brother and his wife and children. Her “friends” at work seem self-centered, and instead of relating to Peggy about her loss, or at least giving her time to grieve, they try to distract her by encouraging her to go out and find a man, go see a funny movie, and basically forget all about her poor little dog who died only that morning.
Trying to move on, Peggy goes on a horrific date with her neighbor, played superbly by John C. Reilly. The man’s house is decorated with deer and moose heads mounted on the wall, and as a child he even shot his own dog accidentally during a hunting trip. Peggy then adopts a new dog, a huge German Shepard who was abused and has behavioral problems. She starts falling in love and becoming heavily influenced by the dog’s trainer, who is vegan, and gay (though she heartbreakingly doesn’t find out about the latter until later in the film). Peggy decides to become a vegan, starts volunteering for the ASPCA and learning about non-profit organizations that rescue farm animals from being slaughtered. This is where Peggy starts going crazy. After being romantically rejected by her dog trainer, she realizes that she has always been disappointed by people, and relates to animals much better than people. And it’s sad. Don’t get me wrong; I love animals, especially dogs. I have never had a dog, but I love it when you pass them on the street, and they smile at you, or you can tell that they’re feeling sad. They have feelings just like people, and give so much love.
So Peggy starts stealing money from the company she works for to donate to organizations like PETA. She has a harder and harder time relating to people, her new dog mauls another dog and is euthanized, she is fired from her job for stealing, and she adopts 15 dogs from the pound to rescue them from being killed. Her house becomes a disaster area, and there is Peggy, lost in the chaos, but loving the company and love her house full of rambunctious dogs gives her.
In the end, after attempting to murder her neighbor, who she believes killed Pencil by leaving slug poisoning out, Peggy joins a group that protests animal cruelty, and we see her on a bus, headed towards her future.
Though her character was an extreme example, I think many of us fear becoming “the crazy cat lady,” or being old and alone, and not being able to relate to people.
There was a lovely overdubbed monologue at the end of the film, where Peggy talks about love. How some people love other people, some people love power, or money, or material things. But how she loves animals, and knows it’s her calling to save as many as she can. I didn’t cry at the end of the movie. But I did cry in the car on the way home, thinking about love, and wondering, at the end of a relationship, or when someone you love dies, where does the love go? It’s still inside of you, aching to come out, to be expressed, even if the person, or dog you love is gone. So maybe all of us become a little bit like Peggy. We try to find some other way to express that love, to put it back into the world, where it can do some good.
No comments:
Post a Comment