Darling Companion, 2012.
Directed by Lawrence Kasdan.
Starring Mark Duplass, Richard Jenkins, Diane Keaton, Kevin Kline, Elisabeth Moss, Sam Shepard, Dianne Wiest and Ayelet Zurer.
SYNOPSIS:
Mother and daughter, Beth and Grace, find a bedraggled dog on the side of the freeway. Taking it home and rescuing it, the dog helps Grace meet a man – but Beth’s husband hates the dog and it just might cause even more friction within the family…
Darling Companion represents one of the biggest wastes of talent, either on or off screen, to ever get together and make a film.
There’s too many people involved here to write it off as a minor blip. The main offender is writer/director Lawrence Kasdan for writing a 100 minute script about the wealthy people looking for a dog one of them found abandoned next to the freeway. The lost dog becomes a crass metaphor for love and relationships and the chance for the cast to argue, fall out, and then make up again. You’d expect more from a made-for-TV film, let alone the man who wrote Raiders of the Lost Ark, Body Heat, The Empire Strikes Back, and more closely linked to this bore-fest, the superior The Big Chill.
The cast is so ridiculously good and it’s a wonder one of them agreed to this film, let alone all of the following – Diane Keaton (The Godfather, Annie Hall), Kevin Kline (A Fish Called Wanda, Cyrano de Bergerac), Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under, The Visitor), and Dianne Wiest (Hannah and Her Sisters, Bullets Over Broadway). Adding to the list of wasted talent is composer James Newton Howard who is given nothing to work with and must have been his most difficult film to score; he’s a genius to have written a single note.
This is one for die-hard fans of the cast and crew only.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Rohan Morbey – follow me on Twitter.
Originally published February 11, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
