Denny is an easy fit for Ventimiglia, who channels his role as Jack on NBC’s This Is Us, the loving family man as everyday hero. We’re well into the film before Enzo shuts up for a minute or two, and it’s a relief to hear humans talk to each other, however briefly. But that literary device becomes the dreaded screen convention of narrating what we can see before our eyes. Some of Enzo’s thoughts come directly from the source, Garth Stein’s best-selling novel. If you’re going to make a ruminating dog your main character, at least give him clever things to say. But usually his language is grandiose and dull, such as, “I spent a sleepless night contemplating what Denny had just said.” Contemplating. Enzo watches a documentary about Mongolia and learns that dogs can be reincarnated as humans. His observations are meant to be humorously philosophical, and they have their moments. The dog-thinking-out-loud concept is not the big problem.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |