Metacritic reviews

Bizarre and challenging when it's not outright goofy, Wiener-Dog never feels remotely compromised. Somehow hilarious and gloomy at the same time, it represents a big middle finger to anyone who wishes Solondz would lighten up.

With Wiener-Dog, Solondz is perhaps at his most evidently candid, showing all the different, damaged people that can enter and exit one’s life, and what our mutually shared, inevitable destination will be.

Wiener-Dog doesn’t find Solondz going light to deliver an inspirational medley. Instead, he’s created arguably his most caustic film since Happiness.

En route to the harshest, most unremittingly bleak film of his career, Solondz unleashes some of his sharpest commentary on human mortality and regret.

You’ll laugh, you’ll cringe, you’ll wince, and you’ll sigh. Such is the genius of Wiener-Dog, and of Solondz, and why he remains a reliable visionary.

Solondz’s latest is morose and jaundiced and, although uneven, a relentlessly clever little film.

This elegantly wrought oddity appears at the halfway mark to be heading into uncharacteristically hopeful territory for Solondz — until a toe-tapping intermission marks a reassuring plunge into abject despair.

What saves the movie is Solondz’s sensibility, which is still one-of-a-kind.

Life may be as unfair and arbitrary as Solondz portrays it, but it is arguably more diverse in its moods and its ups and downs. The pic may not be a dog, but nor is it likely to become anyone’s best friend.

The joke is that Wiener-Dog is about as non-epic as can be, but there’s also a sleight of hand, with the dazzle of the images distracting us from the fact that the movie has run out of plot. Meanwhile, the depths of doghood remain unplumbed.