It would be easy to write the film adaptation of Dog Gone off as “treacle,” “schmaltz,” “overwrought tripe,” etc.—which, in fact, a large majority of critics have. But for those willing to look beyond the title and synopsis, there are many underlying messages to be gleaned. Chief among them being: financial success equals acceptance among one’s human pack. Ergo, to not have that means slow and steady ostracism from “the pack.” What’s more, anyone not moved by such an earnest love letter to the power of dogs and their unconditional love is probably a monster. In any event, the movie is based on Pauls Toutonghi’s 2016 novel, Dog Gone: A Lost Pet’s Extraordinary Journey and the Family Who Brought Him Home. And if the dedication page wasn’t gut-punching enough (“For all the dogs who never made it back”), we soon find out that the author is telling the story of his wife’s family. That wife being Fielding Marshall’s (Johnny Berchtold) sister, Peyton (Savannah Bruffey).
It is Fielding who adopts a golden retriever mix (in the movie, he gets “Hollywoodized” into a yellow Labrador) during an emotional nadir. Once more, the film version opts to “tweak” some of the original version of events in order to simplify Fielding’s distress by making his motivation come from being upset by a girlfriend breaking up with him. In actuality, Fielding’s sense of grief comes from losing his daughter to an infant death in 1991, followed by his wife abandoning him without a warning in the wake of such a loss. But, for the sake of amending the catalyst for getting a dog to better reflect Fielding’s age, the source of conflict comes from a college breakup.
One element the movie is determined to maintain, however, is the parallel thread between Virginia “Ginny” Marshall (Kimberly Williams-Paisley, of Father of the Bride repute) and her son’s life with regard to certain relationship dynamics that are revealed early on in the novel, with Toutonghi recounting the feelings of insignificance that Ginny’s own parents inflicted upon her—mainly her drunken mother. It was amid her cold and hostile “home” environment that Ginny was blessed with a “knight” in shining armor: the gift of a dog named Oji (the Japanese word for “prince”). An Akita dog with the face of a bear, his presence in Ginny’s life was an immediately calming one. And even though the movie interpretations of Ginny’s parents are far gentler than what’s portrayed in the book, enough callousness is shown to get a sense of how important Oji was to her as a being to emotionally attach to. Someone who would actually love her just for who she was, without any threats or snapping or not so “veiled” digs at her personage. Gonker becomes that for Fielding. Indeed, on a much less abusive scale, Fielding’s father, John (Rob Lowe), can’t help but make cutting remarks directed at Fielding after he ends up moving in with his parents again right after graduating from Virginia University. Because, somehow, while he was just having a good time “existing” with Gonker, all of his friends managed to secure steady “adult” jobs. This being, originally, in 1998, when some Gen X-inspired laxity was still theoretically at play in terms of being more lenient toward college graduates who couldn’t “find themselves” a.k.a. put on the monkey suit right away and dance.
Director Stephen Herek (known for 90s masterpieces like Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead and 101 Dalmatians) and screenwriter Nick Santora update the setting to “modern times” with allusions to social media and texting, but, by and large, Dog Gone still feels set during a more carefree time (read: the late 90s). When even someone like Fielding’s best friend and fellow socially awkward kindred, Nate (Nick Peine), can mange to get a job. It’s also Nate’s “thing” to quote “smart, dead” people to others apropos of a particular scenario. And it is at the beginning that he quotes Mother Teresa with, “Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.” Fielding would tend to agree, which is exactly why he adopts Gonker—the two “imprinting” on one another instantly. And, of course, Ginny, though she never talks about it, felt the same way in her own lonely childhood: utterly destitute. This is where the idea of “riches” not amounting to getting a job and falling in line with the rest of society is a reiterated theme throughout Dog Gone. With Fielding’s own sister surrendering to that trope by announcing, “I got a job in the Creative Writing Department” for the summer. And yes, the real-life Peyton Marshall would go on to write 2015’s Goodhouse, itself a novel about “the corrosive effects of fear and the redemptive power of love.” But even Peyton, at that point in her life, was a sucker for the capitalist con, goading her brother, “You say you don’t wanna live with the ‘rents? Then why don’t you get a job and go pay rent?”
The constant barrage of insults directed at Fielding for his inability to “get it together” might be deemed annoying by those would like to call “white boy privilege” on the entire luxury of being able to languish at all, and yet, this “head in the sand” vibe that Fielding gives off has less to do with race/class and more to do with the burden each and every person is beset with in terms of having it drilled within them that job + money = worth. Love it or leave it, as they also like to vexingly say about New York. In which case, suicide sometimes really does feel like the best option for escaping the shit “choices” we’re all presented with after a certain age.
This is exactly why Gonker is Fielding’s best friend: he never judges. Never makes him feel “lesser than” for who he is or some supposed “lack” that correlates to what is or is not in his bank account. As Fielding is forced to explain later on, when they’re walking the Appalachian Trail to find Gonker together, “All my friends have all gone and started their lives and I’m happy for them, but, it’s like, they pity me. I totally feel it. And you and Mom, you guys judge me too… In how you look at me, in how you talk about me when you think I can’t hear you. And when all of your friends and your mom and your dad and their friends, when everyone looks at you like you’re a loser, it’s nice to have one soul on Earth who thinks you’re fine just the way you are. Even if you are a little bit different, or don’t have a job, or direction, or momentum. Just one soul who loves you because you are you.”
This intense soliloquy in a hotel room comes a while after Fielding arrives home one day from an outing with Gonker to find his parents having lunch with another couple named the Goodwins. After John makes a joke about his son being “the stinky foul beast” who brought his dog, he continues to goad Fielding after his mom remarks of her son’s constant “lack of hunger,” “You never eat,” to which John explains, “He’s preparing for a life of poverty.”
Once Fielding has all-too-readily left the room, he lingers to overhear Ginny chastising, “You tease him too much.” John replies, “Ah, I’m just havin’ fun with him.” Mr. Goodwin adds, “Must be nice to have him home. “Yes and no,” John is quick to chime in, further expounding, “Look, I was broke in college. I worked my way through with three jobs, and when I graduated I had employment. You know, and when my father was twenty-one, he’d served in a war.” Ginny defends her only son with, “He just hasn’t found his path yet.” John is unsympathetic to such “snowflake” bullshit, interjecting, “Yeah, well, he better. I will not be Tim Misner. His son’s thirty-five years old and just moved back into the house with them. It’s what keeps me up at night.” But what keeps many whose spirit hasn’t yet been broken by society, The Man and Capitalism at large is the thought that one day it will get them. It has to sooner or later, lest one opt for the life of homelessness and destitution John was alluding to should Fielding persist on this path of “no path.”
Genuinely affected by what he overheard, Fielding calls Nate for a tête-à-tête they have on the trail, at which time he confesses to his friend, “I always knew he was disappointed in me, but, this time, he just seemed embarrassed.” Nate assures Fielding that isn’t true, that John is just “being a dad,” as it were. Fielding further complains, “He just doesn’t get it. Like, I’m very well-aware of how lucky I am. You know, to have two parents who busted their asses to send me to school and gave me every opportunity… I’m just trying to figure out what to do with that opportunity… It’s hard to find a career when you’re not good at anything… It’s not like I can get paid for kayaking.” As it will turn out, actually, he can. For Fielding finds his way to giving outdoor tours, currently in Chile at the time of Dog Gone’s release. Because, alas, the ultimate theme of any mainstream work is still to emphasize that one should “monetize their talent.” Never fight back against capitalism truly. For that’s a battle everyone will lose, so they might as well “Surrender Dorothy” and make the most of it with whatever “talent” they can whore out. Dogs, fortunately, remain a pure window into how to just “be.”
At some point on John and Fielding’s endless search for the only living being that doesn’t give a fuck about what Fielding does or how much he makes (or rather, doesn’t make), they encounter a cabal of fellow “misfits” in the style of Fielding. John gets the chance to hang out by a campfire alone with two of the boys, one of whom compliments him on accompanying his son through this journey because, as he tells it, “My old man, he thinks everything I do is stupid—like writing my music or making my plays.” John is sure to contradict while simultaneously reiterating the damaging message, “He loves you. [But] writing your plays and making your music isn’t gonna pay the bills. You know, or get you health care coverage, so he worries.”
In the end, all any human—especially the parents that bring another human into this world—wants is to see their progeny adhering to The System, otherwise it swallows them whole and spits them back out as a pile of bones. To give to a dog that’s far happier and more evolved for never having needed to care about such a fucked-up way of life.
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