Todd Solondz’s newest film, Wiener-Dog, is a reference to both the dachshund (which links multiple stories together throughout the film) and to the nickname of heroine Dawn Wiener from Solondz’s previous film Welcome to the Dollhouse. Dawn (Greta Gerwig) does make an appearance, along with an ensemble of darkly humorous characters, in a film full of cynicism and deadpan humor that doesn’t always hit its mark
The film’s titular character serves mostly as a device to link four different stories together under the guise that each owns the same wiener-dog at different parts of its life. True to Solondz’s M.O., each story is full of talk about death and dysfunction. For instance, a mother (Julie Delpy) explains to her young son that their dog must be spayed by telling a gruesome story concerning her childhood dog getting raped and impregnated by a mangy street dog, only for the dog to die while giving birth to stillborn puppies. An unhappy screenwriter-turned-teacher (Danny DeVito) spends his time trying to half-heartedly hawk his new screenplay while barely tolerating the students he’s trying to teach. A drug addict granddaughter (Zosia Mamet) and her artist boyfriend Fantasty (Michael Shaw) turn up at her grandmother’s (Ellen Burstyn) house after three years away just to ask for money.
It is certainly a bleak take on the human condition, but one that gets so desolate that it becomes ridiculous and funny. At one point the wiener-dog wears a bright yellow dress and fake explosives, prompting a fantastic scene involving a bomb squad. Mamet’s flippant portrayal of the granddaughter and her awkward interactions with her grandmother had me laughing out of sheer discomfort. And one cannot overlook a brief intermission period, featuring the wiener-dog walking through all sorts of green-screen backgrounds set to an original song entitled “The Ballad of the Wiener-Dog”.
That being said, not all the humor worked. A doggie diarrhea scene initially had me laughing, but as the shot kept going, and going, and going, I grew fatigued and frustrated. A mariachi band that randomly appears to Dawn and her road trip buddy Brandon felt completely unnecessary and out of place, showing that at time the absurdity is overdone.
The pacing of the film was incredibly uneven, the tone indecisive. At the beginning, the dog appeared to be a major character in the film’s unusual story arc. Though the dog’s home transfer is originally explained as we see it’s ownership transferred from parents with a young son to Dawn, the explanations stop there as no other segments explain how that person got that dog. As the stories progress, the dog fades from being a central focal point to a familiar background object. Dawn’s story ended on a poignant and heartfelt note, which ultimately felt out of place, contrasting sharply with the bleakness of the rest of the film’s stories.
The inconsistent approach and tone is jarring and off-putting, as is the intense cynicism of humans. Although this kind of humor isn’t necessary my bag, Wiener-Dog is weird enough that you won’t be able to stop thinking about it.
