Marion M. Merritt

Must Love Dogs Tries to Defy Summer Fluff but it falls short, despite a stellar cast of seasoned, comic actors.
Wasn’t it only three years ago that Oscar nominated , Diane Lane, was in her full, sensuous glory, creating steamy, screen heat with hunky Olivier Martinez and driving a tame, detached Richard Gere to murder, in order to keep her, in “Unfaithful?” Still graced with the that rare kind of natural beauty that would turn both men and women’s heads, as she entered any room, we now have to watch as Diane Lane is cast as a woman who can’t get a date, on her own, in an easy to digest, romantic comedy, Must Love Dogs. The hard part is that we have to believe in her struggles to find a date, then love, in order for this film to work at all.

It has been eight months since pre-school teacher, Sarah’s (Diane Lane) divorce. Her large, close-knit, Irish-Catholic family is determined to help her get out of her pajamas and into someone else’s. We first meet this interfering clan, crowded in Sarah’s kitchen, all bearing photos of their idea of a perfect man for her. It doesn’t matter if he is married, divorced, gay, an anonymous model from a magazine, the main criteria is that they are male and a potential date and will get Sarah back into the living and loving segment of society.
Sarah’s glib sister, Carol (Elizabeth Perkins, who throws out some funny, pointed lines, a la Eve Arden at her gal pal best) decides to create an online profile and set Sarah up on potential dates, all without her prior knowledge. With too little prodding, Sarah dives into her love assignment, setting up a sometimes funny montage of stereotypical, bad first dates. We get a look of what is out there for single women over forty : someone who is too close for comfort, a jerk who tells her to her radiant face that she is too old, he likes them around 18 (so why did he answer her ad), a depressed crybaby and one who is looking for a some mild, kinky action.
At the same time we watch Sarah’s searches unfold, we are introduced to freshly divorced, Jake (John Cusack), a sensitive renaissance man, who designs and builds wood rowing skulls, the old world way. He is also reluctant to get back into the dating world and would rather watch Doctor Zhivago for the millionth time.
Sarah’s sister, Carol, has not given up, despite never having to go on any of the bad dates and places a new ad and a new criteria. The potential suitor must love dogs. This is the ad that catches a non dog owning Jake’s eye. Oh, Sarah doesn’t own a dog either, so both “rent” a pooch for the date. Of course, this first meeting has to go badly because neither are honest and Carol has added some extra breast tissue to Sarah that just isn’t there and Jake calls her on her breast reduction. It is a combination of first date nerves, fear of acknowledging chemistry and confronting each other’s dishonesty that convinces Sarah to cut it short and flee.
Yes, these two are meant to be together, but, before this can happen, we are must go through a land mind of misunderstandings, road blocks, missed meetings and a side sexual attraction between Sarah and one of her student’s separated father, a pseudo-quasi-renaissance man, Bobby (Dermot Mulroney).
Meanwhile, Sarah’s suave, handsome, refined, widowed father, Bill (Christopher Plummer) is involved in his own online dating entanglements. Unlike his gun shy daughter, Bill wants to date as many women as possible. One of the three of his steady dates is the flamboyant, trailer park-living, Dolly (Stockard Channing in the film’s most honest character). We discover that there is a huge heart underneath all the make up and turquoise jewelry .
By coincidence, the handsome Bobby and his cute son, also live in the same trailer park as Dolly, so he and Sarah can conveniently run into each other outside the preschool and explore their mutual heat for each other.
Even though Sarah has found two interesting possibilities in both Jake and Billy, she continues her online search, this time with confidence and on her own, setting up another round of not so amusing bad-date montages.
Sarah is constantly being bombarded with advice and interference from her well-meaning family, but, luckily she has the now standard, gay best friend and co-worker, Leo (Brad William Henke) who represents the voice of reason.
Will Sarah chose the sensitive Jake or the dangerously handsome Bobby? Will her family leave her alone long enough for her to choose? Will we even care?

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Must Love Dogs Tries To Defy Summer FluffRead More »

Performance artist Miranda July writes and directs her first feature film
Christine (Miranda July), part-time video artist, part-time elder care driver takes one of her clients shopping for shoes and spies the love of her life, the wide-eyed, newly separated, shoe salesman, Richard (John Hawkes, Deadwood). She knows nothing about his life, but, she is in love and determined in her quest of him, almost to the point of seeming like a stalker, a benign stalker.

Richard, still healing from many wounds, one self-inflicted (he purposely pours lighter fluid on his hand, lights it on fire and seems surprised that he is burning) and his emotional wounds. He is trying to start a new life without his wife, in a cramped apartment, with two sons, preteen Peter (Miles Thompson) and grade school age, Bobby (Brandon Radcliffe), both of whom are like strangers to him. They are silent in their anger and have shut him out of their lives. They prefer to connect and communicate with strangers in online chat rooms, playing the game of not being themselves, online, just like adults.
Young neighbor and school mate of Peter, Slyvie (the excellent Carlie Westerman) is obsessed with order and buying household items for her dowry. Her happiness comes from connecting with neatly ironed towel sets and the latest kitchen gadget, dreaming of her perfect future. She has connected with her soul mate and doesn’t know it.
Two, much too adult, fourteen year old neighbor girls, Heather (Natasha Slayton) and Rebecca (Najarra Townsend) find their connections by teasing Richard’s co-worker, Andrew (busy character actor Brad William Henke) to the point of where he leaves them explicit messages, taped to his living room window. In their quest to find out which one on them is better at fellatio, they capture and use a strangely detached Peter for their own version of a double-blind study. No doubt this scene will make some uncomfortable in its frank look at the activities of today’s sexually aware, but still naïve, youth.
All of these different narratives and more mix, match and intersect to tell an off-beat love story.

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