When you put Kevin Kline (why doesn't he get more roles? He's a lovely, subdued actor, and we certainly need more subdued actors), Dianne Wiest, Elisabeth Moss, Richard Jenkins, and Diane Keaton on the same set, you know the movie will have meat. It's not so much star-studded as talent- studded, which is much better if you like good film. By "good film" I mean a story that resonates with the viewer as real; a story filled with the tension that is our every day life, and best of all, a story that doesn't end with the hero saving the day and riding off into the sunset on a horse. The ending of this movie says, "There are good days and bad days and days you like your family and days you do not." The movie I'm talking about is called Darling Companion.
The story centers around a rescued dog. The dog goes missing and everyone gets off the personal roller-coaster of their lives to try to find him. And that's when the lessons begin.
The dog in this movie makes you want to rush out to adopt all homeless dogs. I don't know where they got him, but he is filmed from all the right angles. He isn't shot in close-ups like Lassie, but shown as part of a family's world in the way that dogs often come to be—the glue that holds everything together. I love the dog, whose real name is not in this review because after searching the Net for quite some time, I just couldn't find it. It should be in the cast list, but it's not. I'm just saying.
The film is written by Lawrence Kasdan, whom we all remember from The Bill Chill. So apparently, in real life, Kasdan and his family adopted a dog and then lost him in the Rockies, where they extended their vacation three weeks until they found him. Darling Companion is based on that experience. It's like his famous Big Chill in that the plot is less important than the relationships between the characters. I like that about his films, and Darling Companion has that same rewarding interaction among its characters, which brings it all together. The husband and wife. The mother and daughter. The sister and brother. The mother and son. Is Kasdan the only writer/director who does that? Is he the only one who gives us one-on-one interactions in the context of a plot that really isn't all that important? Was there any resolution to the question of why Alex killed himself in The Big Chill? Where was the dog all those days he was missing in Darling Companion, and did anyone care?
Sidebar. Can I mention here that the best part of The Big Chill was the music? We can all agree on that right?
So here is a list of what you can take away from this movie: Dealing with a difficult mom; loving and hating your significant other at the same time; not caring what others think of you and being you anyway; making choices based on what feels good rather than what looks good; turning a car around, even on the highway, if you think you see something you should not turn away from.
That's worth ten dollars right?
The story centers around a rescued dog. The dog goes missing and everyone gets off the personal roller-coaster of their lives to try to find him. And that's when the lessons begin.
The dog in this movie makes you want to rush out to adopt all homeless dogs. I don't know where they got him, but he is filmed from all the right angles. He isn't shot in close-ups like Lassie, but shown as part of a family's world in the way that dogs often come to be—the glue that holds everything together. I love the dog, whose real name is not in this review because after searching the Net for quite some time, I just couldn't find it. It should be in the cast list, but it's not. I'm just saying.
The film is written by Lawrence Kasdan, whom we all remember from The Bill Chill. So apparently, in real life, Kasdan and his family adopted a dog and then lost him in the Rockies, where they extended their vacation three weeks until they found him. Darling Companion is based on that experience. It's like his famous Big Chill in that the plot is less important than the relationships between the characters. I like that about his films, and Darling Companion has that same rewarding interaction among its characters, which brings it all together. The husband and wife. The mother and daughter. The sister and brother. The mother and son. Is Kasdan the only writer/director who does that? Is he the only one who gives us one-on-one interactions in the context of a plot that really isn't all that important? Was there any resolution to the question of why Alex killed himself in The Big Chill? Where was the dog all those days he was missing in Darling Companion, and did anyone care?
Sidebar. Can I mention here that the best part of The Big Chill was the music? We can all agree on that right?
So here is a list of what you can take away from this movie: Dealing with a difficult mom; loving and hating your significant other at the same time; not caring what others think of you and being you anyway; making choices based on what feels good rather than what looks good; turning a car around, even on the highway, if you think you see something you should not turn away from.
That's worth ten dollars right?