Rating: PG13
Genre:
Comedy Drama
Theatrical Release: 04/13/2007(USA
Release Date: 08/28/2007
SubTitles: English/Espanol
Dubbed: English/Espanol
Sound: DD5.1
Run Time: 96 Minutes
Flags: Adult Situations, Questionable for Children, Adult Language, Adult Humor
Distributor/Studio: Paramount
An unremarkable administrative assistant finds her life going to the dogs both literally and figuratively in actor/screenwriter-turned-director
Mike White's dark
comedy drama. An inexplicably cheerful office worker whose somewhat sad excuse for a life seems to revolve around her pet beagle
Pencil,
Peggy (
Molly Shannon) seems to relate better to her four-legged friend than she does to most humans. Most of her person-to-person interaction revolves around doting on other people's children and treating her co-workers to daily donuts, and
Peggy just doesn't find much solace in the company of her know-it-all sister-in-law
Bret (
Laura Dern) or her anxiety-prone boss
Robin (
Josh Pais). When
Peggy's dog
Pencil is taken before his time, the devastated dog-lover is wracked with guilt. Now desperate to fill the gaping void that has suddenly opened in her life,
Peggy agrees to a date with her gun-nut neighbor
Al (
John C. Reilly) that ends in disaster when she begins to suspect that the boorish brute may have in fact poisoned her ill-fated pooch. Later, after adopting every dog at the local pound and transforming herself into an overzealous animal-rights activist, the increasingly unhinged
Peggy reaches out to asexual activist
Newt (
Peter Sarsgaard) in a last-grasp attempt at forming a human connection that is met with casual indifference.
~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
