Wiener Dog Is Loose!

Todd Solondz's new film, Wiener Dog, just had its debut screening at Sundance Film Festival. Reviews are flooding in, which pretty much answer all our Wiener Dog questions about what to expect.

Apparently it's essentially an anthology in four parts, connected by a literal wiener dog that appears in all four stories. Yes, one of the four (the second) is a sort of sequel to Welcome To the Dollhouse, with Greta Gerwig as an older Dawn Weiner, who goes on a road trip with Brendan Sexton III's character, now played by Kieran Culkin. The first segment stars Julie Delpy as a mother of a cancer survivor who buys her son the dog. The third stars Danny Devito as a screenwriter forced to make a living teaching filmwriting to students. And finally, the dog winds up with Ellyn Burstyn as a woman who gets an unwelcome visit from her granddaughter.

I've just read ten reviews in a row (Variety, Vulture, Indiewire, The Guardian, Crave, Film Stage, Screen Daily, The Wrap, Gulf News and Madison) and they've all sort of run together in my mind, but they were all positive, ranging from high to mixed praise. and they all seem to agree that tonally, it's in keeping with Solondz's past work, which is always nice to hear as fans.

Now, let's just hope it's not a whole year before it breaks out of the festival circuit and us industry outsiders get to see it.