I wanted to see this when it was out in the theater, but, alas, I had to cook dinner or take out the trash or drive someone somewhere. So it arrives from Netflix and I notice it is the dreaded PG-13 “for racy (my word) references.” O no. What willwe do? Racy references? How will we ever go on?
PG-13 to me is basically saying “We are too pussy to get into it and too scared of not making any money to completely clean it up.” But it’s got the creepy-delicious Peter Sarsgaard so I’m in. I guess.
Molly Shannon plays a pretty-plain secretary at an Office Space-type company. She’s kind and considerate and listens to everyone’s petty concerns and rants. She brings donuts. She is happy for her office mates when they get engaged, married, promoted, etc. She is unmarried and has a dog, named Pencil (great name), whom she adores and lives for. Her existence is seemingly narrow, but she seems like a real sweetheart.
Pencil dies. She completely and spectacularly crumbles over a period of months — adopting another (troubled) dog, alienating her neighbor, forging her boss’ signature on checks, drowning her astonishingly and scene-stealingly awful sister-in-law’s fur coats (I never liked Laura Dern until she played this consumately horrible, obsessively self-absorbed piece of work…she’s really worth the whole movie) and scaring her niece out of ever eating a ham sandwich again in her newly-vegan zeal.
Peter Sarsgaard shows up as an animal shelter employee who turns Shannon on to veganism, and the plight of animals. He’s fairly mainstream about his beliefs, but she goes totally Ground Zero on him. His character is the one I thought about for a long time and one of the reasons I liked the movie more the more I thought about it: He mentions he’s celibate, but he never goes into the details of why. He talks about a disturbing dream in which he is raped by mastiffs, and he seems pretty rigid about rules in general. Funky character. He also weeps really high-pitched and makes you think, Whoa, what?
I like that the movie does not answer anything neatly at all. I also love the completely deadpan-serious way it lets unintentionally funny lines just lay there for you to appreciate…or not. I also LOVE that this movie was written and directed by the guy who played Ned Shneebly in School of Rock. He basically made a movie all about fringe characters like Ned Shneebly.
Better after you let it sit in your head for a day or two.
