Year Of The Dog

One of those quirky little movies that you marvel ever got made...

Year of the Dog would have benefited from a stronger hand behind the camera (White's general aesthetic basically involves cribbing heavily from Wes Anderson and Jared Hess), but as a showcase for Shannon, it ends up being strangely moving...

Although the awkwardness between characters makes it funny, the film tries too hard to break with convention, sending the tone lurching from cheery-bland comedy (a la Napoleon Dynamite) to something more closely associated with rock stars on drugs...

With pathos competing equally against the often pungent laughs for the audience's attention, it's a movie that is both unsettling and amusing, most comparable to "Chuck & Buck" in tone...

Billed as a comedy but it would be every bit as accurate to categorize it as science fiction or a World War II drama. It is simply not a funny film...

This directorial debut of writer Mike White (Nacho Libre, The Good Girl) is a clever, character- filled black comedy that unfortunately runs out of steam and goodwill well before its final act. Boasting the same dry, observational humour as his previous work, Year of the Dog trades in nervous chuckles of recognition rather than full-on belly laughs...