How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog (2002)
The story of Peter McGowan, a chain-smoking, impotent, insomniac playwright who lives in Los Angeles. Once very successful, he is now in the tenth year of a decade-long string of production failures. He finds himself bonding with a new neighbor's lonely young daughter who has mild cerebral palsy; and during one of his middle-of-the-night strolls, he encounters his oddball doppelgänger.
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This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.
If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.
This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
Kenneth Branagh is excellent in this film. He plays a character a bit like Mike Church in Dead Again, a bit of a jerk who believing becomes a good guy. I found the comedy amazing, and the relationship with the little girl was heart wrenching. The scene where she falls when dancing and embarrasses her mother... The other "Peter" could easily be a two dimensional character, but through his conversations with Pete we see into his psyche. Even I was shocked by his behavior in the end. David Krumholz who is known for playing math genius Charlie in Numbers is hilarious as a flaming gay stage director. Robin Wright Penn is also good, although I think the hair color choice lacking. A fantastic movie.
The script gives Branagh a full range of comedy styles to work with - scathing comments, witty repartee, crude slapstick - it all works together well because the thread is coherent and always looks beyond the humor to the realistically portrayed underlying moral issues. These issues include disability and how it is experienced not only by those living with a disability but, more importantly, by those close to them. Another issue is the McGowan's differences of opinion on having children and how their growth in their relationship and themselves affects this. Laugh-lovers, however, should not despair, as the script does not degenerate into maudlin or overblown consideration of these issues - rather it deals with them as they come up, realistically, but with good doses of humor along the way, rather like in 'real life'.
This film was supposed to be played off as a comedy. The only thing I found remotely funny was the interview that is going on the whole time. The acting was wonderful. Branagh was excellent and I can't wait for him to do another Shakespearian play. Also Robin Wright Penn did a great job with her part. I thought the movie moved a little slow. The way the mother of the child acted is probably the way most parents of children with disabilities act. I still believe the mother got what she deserved.This was a film that could have done so much better. If I was wanting to watch a drama at the time I probably would have liked this film more.
...you'll love this movie. It too uses a lot of big words and high concepts. It too has too many storylines that don't connect (ever). It too features a bunch of rich people feeling sorry for themselves for no apparent reason (maybe pondering the meaninglessness of their meaninglessness?). It too has a bunch of too-cool-for-the-room humor that you will only get if you are very smart and very clever.Don't get me wrong, there are good things about this movie, but they barely make it watchable start-to-finish. Branaugh, Hofrichter, and Harris all deliver spectacular performances and there scenes together prove to be the glue that holds this thing together.Of all the things in this film I didn't enjoy I will focus solely of the putrid performance of David Krumholtz, as the flamboyantly gay director, Brian Sellars. It is, simply put, the most two-dimentional, stereotypical, and offensively poor depiction of a homosexual I have ever seen on film. Seriously folks, it is painful to watch, and Krumholtz ought to be blacklisted for it.