“Hangdog” tells the story of a man who misplaces his girlfriend’s dog when she goes for a job interview. After that, he frantically attempts to retrieve the dog for three days. It’s a borderline cringe-comedy centered around Portland, Maine’s struggling thirty-somethings from the tech and entertainment industries, and for certain moments, it’s one of those movies where you occasionally wish to avert your gaze from the actions taken by the characters.
Borges Desmin plays Walter, the central character of the story, a cool and chic artist, but in reality, he’s the result of somebody’s lack of basic parenting skills. He is extremely selfish and inconsiderate, as showcased by how he goes out of his way to not care for ‘Tony’, Wendy’s dog. He tries fending for himself while not resorting to looking after the dog, calling Wendy or putting up flyers. Self-centered people such as Walt are horrible to be around, let alone being in a relationship with, sadly I can relate to Wendy’s character quite too much. Alas, I can’t say I was totally sold on the idea that Walter could offer Wendy anything better than what she was capable of offering herself, and that was all thanks to the great amount of trust placed in the movie’s narrative. Walt, unlike the typical man, lacks traits to abide by normalcy as he would rather make idiotic decisions, endlessly chasing after a ‘dog’. In the context of their films, Matt Cascella, the director, and Jen Cordery, the co-writer, cannot view the situation properly as they do not live in the same society as I do. They happen to be married and together with a pet dog, which explains their bias.
If the cast were two-dimensional including the oddballs that Walt encounters and mixes with, this film would have been barely watchable, however, what saves this movie is Desmin’s performance as well as Walt’s character, the movie would have been unbearable otherwise. His role lacks any hidden agenda or tricky intentions by the actors. Although the character does seem highly depressed and emotional (which more or less is the case), the audience is able to sympathize. The shift in the character’s performance is what the movie feels fully engaged in for the most part. This particular character happens to fit within the usual borderline classic romance/comedy such as “Heartbreak Kid”, and “The Pallbearer.”
Wendy from O’Sullivan’s is likewise realistic as a one full character and a representative of a type as well. Most of the action in this movie revolves around Walt trying to fix this awful mistake he made as Wendy Pere goes off for an interview with walt’s friend who went ahead and started a web-based “Etsy for sustainable shopping”, while Wendy conversely was absent for most of the film. Still, you are given enough hyper-specific details to get who she is: a super-nice super-achiever, the kind of person who, at age eight, sold 624 cookies to save manatees in Florida. We relocated to Portland, the city where I was born, as a result of his heart attack; even after this, he has since fully recovered, she continues to live there.
Wendy still loves Walts but he has been quite disappointed since he decided to resign from his job. Do any of them have a plan for getting children? Actually, combining fatherhood and Walt does not fit at all because of his hatred of Tony concerning the couple’s sexual activities, especially as Sleep Dosh insists on Wendy and him sleeping in separate beds. Even Toney may be considered as wife to those who are not educated. Consequently, there is a kind of fatherhood of us. The reason of Walt’s losing Toney is a big part the reason offered by those who are characterized as narcissists. Wendy’s his partner and he doesn’t want to be alone, in fact, he does not want to see himself as a loser or a mentally disabled person. For one thing, it’s not concerning the dachshund and for another thing it’s will take quite a long period of time to concern the dachshund (although when Walt finally calls out for Toney it’s for real). None of these factors argues against Hangdog being a comic. A character doesn’t have to be cute or reasonable or do what they would’ve done in whatever circumstances in any scene of the film as long as the character is interesting and authentic. The challenge here is that it is the evaluation of the authors of the film which is not true – that all these sadder and more depressing aspects connected with Walt’s conduct have not been contemplated in this film.
“Hangdog” is not a serious movie nor does it aim to be, it fits the criterion of a ‘hangout’ movie that a lot of American Indie movies of the 90s were, such as “Clerks” or “Walking and Talking”. It is also similar to movies made by Richard Linklater as well as the HBO series “High Maintenance” which involves the life of a Brooklyn Marijuana dealer.
But it is huge and thought-provoking due to the manner in which Walt performs a very definite kind of existential American dread the most profound levels of self-hatred and feeling like a failure don’t get unlocked and explored until fairly late in the narrative and also because Cascella and Cordery have packed the script with auxiliary characters who are vividly characterized enough to herself be the lead of her own movie. I will not go into most of them here because, honestly, I don’t know when the next one is going to turn up or what they are going to do. As much praise is due, however, to Matthew Delimiter’s David who diligently investigates every detail of his ‘line’ only to find out he was the one who phoned Walt after viewing the ad, unnerving and surprising energy and agenda has a lot to say; to Catherine Curtin’s Buffy, who is the missing piece for the final puzzle of the story; and to Barbara Rosenblat as Marianne, an outspoken, hard-living neighbor of the couple. Marianne takes on Lewis a big sister or substitute mother who says downright cruel words to Walt when he pities himself (“You look like you ordered the pie and they served you a hot buttered turd”).
The film’s quality fluctuates quite a bit and becomes significantly better in the last fifteen minutes. In case the film wanted to end up on a conventional but decent note, it still goes on like this – the reason is quite simple, It is not yet done with Walt and Wendy Why.
Now, About the outcome of the dog: it is in a comedy and not in a tragedy. In the end, Toni is fine. In the end everyone is basically fine. I still have some reservations as to what would happen in the long run with Wendy and Walt, and I think the film does too but does not want to spoil our high.
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