'Dog' strays from any one genre

Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News

Published April 27, 2007 at midnight

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Peggy works in a nondescript office and leads a nondescript life. From the look of things, her dog - a cute, little beagle named Pencil - provides her only solace. Pencil keeps Peggy company, and she dotes on him, so you can imagine how devastating it is for Peggy when Pencil dies.

Pencil's death (under apparently mysterious circumstances) sets off a seismic round of grief for Peggy in Mike White's debut directorial effort, Year of the Dog. Part comedy and part exploration of loneliness, Year of the Dog comes off as a definite mixed breed. White, who has written scripts for films such as School of Rock and who starred in Chuck & Buck, hits lots of congruent notes here. His movie is sad, darkly funny, often strange and occasionally dramatic.

To help White blur genre lines, he enlists help from Molly Shannon, who plays Peggy, a woman who becomes increasingly obsessed with animals. Peggy replaces Pencil with another dog. Because she's eager for a companion, she misreads the temperament of her new German shepherd, a pet suggested by another dog person (Peter Sarsgaard).

White doesn't create an easy path for Peggy. She's attracted to Sarsgaard's character, but - as it turns out - the only interest they share involves creatures with four legs. Peggy makes a stab at a relationship with Sarsgaard's Newt after a disastrous attempt to hook up with one of her neighbors (John C. Reilly).

The initial encounters between Peggy and Reilly's Al are among the movie's funniest scenes, those and scenes in which Peggy tries to indoctrinate her sister's children into the world of animal rights. These misguided attempts at education can be funny, providing you don't mind humor served with a grim garnish.

White breezes through a variety of satirical points, but makes sure to take a shot at over-enthused Yuppie parenting, embodied in Peggy's sister, nicely played by Laura Dern.

Year of the Dog, which has a bit of shaggy-dog inconclusiveness to it, eventually shows us how Peggy breaks out of a downward slide that takes her love of animals to uncontrolled extremes. She eventually goes Joseph Campbell on us, following her bliss and affirming that there might be more to life than finding Mr. Right, a goal that one of her colleagues at work (Regina King) regards as primary.

When a movie includes this many tones, it can be difficult to read. I wasn't sure how seriously White takes animal rights. Moreover, Peggy's a character who's not always endearing. She doesn't quite know how to drive her passion into appropriate channels.

Still, Year of the Dog has a sweetly off-kilter quality about it, and it also lays claim to an additional virtue: It probably won't remind you of every other dog movie you've ever seen.

Year of the Dog

She goes off the deep end when her dog dies.

•Grade: B

• Rated: PG-13

• Running time: 97 minutes

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