Metacritic reviews

I mean no impertinence when I say that as a portrait of love and grief, writer-director Mike White's exceptional film Year of the Dog deserves the same admiration accorded Joan Didion's exceptional memoir "The Year of Magical Thinking."

The conceit of the movie is that everyone is obsessed by something and never really tunes into anybody else.

An engaging tragicomedy, exploring the consequences of single-minded fervor in a humorous and humane fashion.

Year of the Dog is an enjoyable, patchy, rambling affair, a series of bittersweet comic sketches strung together with thin wire.

Overall, Year of the Dog evinces an appealing sentimentality without being maudlin or only puppy-dog cute.

A satisfying and funny, if ironic, comedy intended for lovers of both the beast and/or sophisticated laughs.

So oppressive is Peggy's world -- Year of the Dog is the best evocation I've seen of how much worse it is to be depressed in a sunny climate -- that when she finally loses control, it feels more like catharsis than madness.

It's funny ha-ha but firmly in touch with its downer side, which means it's also funny in a kind of existential way.

With pathos competing equally against the often pungent laughs for the audience's attention, it's a movie that is both unsettling and amusing, most comparable to "Chuck & Buck" in tone.

Mike White, writer of "Chuck & Buck" and "The School of Rock" (and oddball actor in both), here directs his latest geek's revenge fantasy like a psychotherapeutically treated Todd Solondz.