BEFORE: One of the things that my 17-plus year deep dive into movies has taught me is that there are only so many stories out there to be told, and only so many ways to tell those stories. So if you watch enough movies, you'll find at some point that you're coming full circle, again and again. This movie over here and that movie over there are essentially identical, or at least identical enough for me to take notice. So "Walt Before Mickey" and "The Apprentice" are really the same story - a man has some failures in his chosen field, but learns from them to be a ruthless, unforgiving businessman and this ultimately leads to success and being a dictatorial land-owner. See, same ideas! Often I will put two films that seem similar (again, to me) on a DVD together, even if they don't share any actors, because in my mind, they are somehow linked - I did that this week with "The Games Maker" and "The Little Prince" because to me they are essentially the same - a young child is orphaned and alone, meets an older man who tells him how the world works, plus there are a lot of fantastical elements that don't seem to make narrative sense. Yeah, I watched "The Little Prince" and I still have no idea what it was about or what it was trying to say.
There are dozens of examples - like "Bullet Train" and "The Machine", same movie, really. I put today's film on a DVD with "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile", because both films have Constance Wu in them, and they both feature a large animal who lives with people in NYC and causes a lot of problems. Very different movies, probably, but also essentially the same. Again, maybe only in my mind. I could just as easily think of today's film as being essentially the same as "The Penguin Lessons" - umm, probably?
Owen Teague carries over from "Walt Before Mickey". Really I had a choice between "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" and "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile", either film would have fit there and led me here, however only one allowed me to drop another Owen Teague film in the middle, so I think I made the right choice there. I'm in no rush to watch "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile" because it looks quite stupid, but maybe it will help me out of a linking jam in the future.
THE PLOT: When a solitary writer adopts a Great Dane that belonged to her late friend, she begins to come to terms with her past and her own creative inner life.
AFTER: I keep my iTunes on shuffle play, unless I want to hear one of my mixes in the proper order - and sometimes I hear a line of lyrics that sticks in my mind and seems applicable to a movie. I thought at one point this should be a regular part of my reviews, but it's too much work and relies too much on chance. But tonight I've got one, from a They Might Be Giants song called "Don't Let's Start" that I listened to a couple days ago:
"No one in the world ever gets what they want, and that is beautiful.
Everybody dies frustrated and sad, and that is beautiful."
Now I don't know if one of the Johns from TMBG was just having a bad day or going through a rough patch, or what - but those are lyrics that catch my attention. How is that beautiful? Is there another meaning to beautiful that I'm not aware of? Does someone really view the world this way, and should I be thinking of the world this way, or is this song just meant to represent the opinions of a suicidal person? Later in the song is the lyric "I don't want to live in this world anymore" so perhaps that's what's taking place. It's too bad the rest of the song is essentially nonsense, like the line "Don't try to stop the tail that wags the hound" which might have some meaning here, if it had any meaning at all.
I worked at a screening of this film, during SVA's "Filmmakers Dialogue" class, back in March of 2025. Three weeks later, the class screened "The Penguin Lessons", only I didn't work that shift. These screenings do bring quality films to my attention, and I can't watch them because I'm on the clock, but I do try to catch up with them later, like I did with "Society of the Snow" and so many others. But this is just one of the methods that puts film on my radar - film festivals is another source, and of course scrolling through new releases on Netflix and Amazon. I've gotten to know some of the attendees of the class (it's an older crowd) and sometimes they ask me what I thought of the film, and I have to remind them that their movie time is my dinner time, but I will watch the film when it's on cable or available to stream.
There's not much story to speak of here, except that this writer, Iris, has to take care of a very big dog after Walter, her mentor dies, nobody else will do it. Also she's writing a book but is creatively blocked (not a very exciting plot point for a film, but I keep seeing it...) and working with her mentor's daughter proves to be a challenge. Like I can't tell if she's writing the book ABOUT her mentor or maybe it's a thinly veiled fictional version of him, that part is all very unclear. The thing is that Walter seems like the most interesting character here, he had three wives over time and then a secret daughter outside of marriage, plus too many girlfriends to count, so really it's a shame they had to kill him off so early, everyone else feels really boring by comparison, except maybe the dog.
Iris has a typical NYC apartment, which means no pets allowed - the super keeps reminding her and she keeps saying she's "working on it", but she's not finding a solution, so how hard is she working on it? Not at all, really, so is there any shock that the landlord company finds out and wants to evict her? Instead of going to see a therapist about what it would mean if she got rid of the dog, it might be better to actually work on finding a better home for the dog, or boarding the dog, or taking it to a no-kill shelter. Look, I'm not saying those are the best solutions, but they are solutions, instead of just avoiding the problem and hoping it will fix itself. Yes, there is a solution here but I'm not sure how legal it is.
They do include flashbacks of Walter, which is good, and then there's a sequence near the end where Iris visits him and I can't tell if this was a flashback or an imaginary sequence or the plot of Iris' book being re-enacted by the same actors. It's unclear, but if you're willing to accept it as a metaphor rather than reality I guess it's what we have to work with.
Because this film deals with suicide, it kind of raises more questions than it answers, and the suicide itself doesn't solve anything, it just makes everyone sad and creates problems for Iris and probably Walter's ex-wives too. Please, if you're thinking that this is a solution to your own problems, call a hotline or get some professional help, you might need to get out of your circular thinking and develop some positive affirmations in your life if you're short on reasons to live. You can volunteer, you can take time off from work, you can travel, you can watch a great movie or eat some ice cream, do whatever you can to feel better about yourself - I know it's a terrible time to be alive and things can easily feel hopeless, so it's more important that we get together and stay active, get out and meet new people and do fun things once in a while. Sure, write a book but if you have trouble writing that book, then please abandon that book - the one thing you MUST not do is fail to write that book and then beat yourself up for not writing that book.
I refuse to believe that everyone dies frustrated and sad - surely some people somewhere must pass peacefully out of this life, surrounded by family and friends and the knowledge that they made a difference, accomplished some things, traveled a bit and saw the beauty of the world and made the most of the chances they were given or the opportunities that came along. We've got to rage, rage against the dying of the light, remember? And if you can't improve your situation, maybe you can at least improve how you feel about it, and that can be enough. OK?
I could follow the Bill Murray link out of here, and skip about four movies - and maybe if I get really busy in the second half of January I might wish that I had, but I think I'll follow a different link out of here and squeeze a couple more action films, and then we'll catch up with Mr. Murray again next week, OK?
Directed by Scott MeGehee (director of "Bee Season") and David Siegel (ditto)
Also starring Naomi Watts (last seen in "The Ring Two"), Bill Murray (last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Noma Dumezweni (last seen in "Retribution"), Sarah Pidgeon, Carla Gugino (last seen in "Gunpowder Milkshake"), Sarah Baskin (last seen in "Thanks for Sharing"), Constance Wu (last seen in "Hustlers"), Juliet Brett, Ann Dowd (last seen in "Bachelorette"), Sue Jean Kim (ditto), Felix Solis (last seen in "The International"), Gina Costigan (last seen in "Brittany Runs a Marathon"), Josh Pais (last seen in "You Hurt My Feelings"), Tom McCarthy (last seen in "Year of the Dog"), Bruce Norris (last seen in "The Sea of Trees"), Cloe Xhauflaire, Susan Lynskey (last seen in "National Treasure: Book of Secrets"), Annie Fox, Carrie Vu, Joe Castle Baker, Gary Littman (last heard in "Ernest & Celestine"), Jess Gabor (last seen in "The Machine"), Anna Fikhman (last seen in "Dumb Money"), Amy Warren, Gabe Castillo, Afsheen Misaghi, Seth Barrish (last seen in "Spoiler Alert"), Ian Lithgow (last seen in "Tesla"), Matt Leisy, Myrna Cabello (last seen in "Puzzle"), Gregory Abbey (last seen in "The Wizard of Lies"), John Leone, with archive footage of James Stewart (last seen in "Love the Coopers"), Donna Reed.
RATING: 6 out of 10 e-mails on the hard drive (like, are these e-mails intended to prove that Walter had sex with a bunch of his students, and that was a terrible thing? Is THAT what the book is going to be about? Again, it's unclear.)
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