Wiener-Dog

And Drug Addiction In Prison

Oh no, I was wrong about this one, guys!

I should have known. A Todd Solondz movie for a Good Vibes Week? Solondz has been a master of the Bad Vibes Indie Comedy™ for decades now. “Welcome To The Dollhouse” is perhaps the most accurately bleak (or bleaky accurate?) movie about being a loser in grade school. And the devastating “Happiness” still stands out during a period where it felt like everyone was making “Suburbia Is Hell” movies – if “American Beauty” is “Sesame Street”, the deranged and brilliant “Happiness”, a candidate for the greatest movie of the 90’s, is “Salo Or The 120 Days Of Sodom”. That’s the power of Todd Solondz. He forces you into torturously mixed-up metaphors.

But “Life During Wartime”, still a tough watch, showed a maturing artist. As a semi-sequel to “Happiness”, that film seemed to be a balm to the wounds of the previous film. Solondz was older, kinder. “Life During Wartime” even begins with the funeral of Dawn Wiener, the lead character in “Welcome To The Dollhouse”. Which is sad and dark in its own way, but look how many people attended! As harsh as the world seemed for Dawn, people loved her and they missed her. She was not alone.

“Wiener-Dog”, thus, resurrects Dawn, now as an adult, and played by Greta Gerwig. I thought this was wonderful, particularly considering the movie is built around Dawn’s adorable new dog. Yes, I wanted to get out of prison and see one of the most tortured characters in 90’s indie cinema live to be happy, with an adorable little friend. Maybe time had changed Todd Solondz. Certainly he was still something of a pessimist. But maybe there was sunlight shining through, and it was because of a dog.

Solondz will never be accused of sentimentality, so sadly, the beginning of this film will be a turn-off to many. Our hero, a tiny little wiener dog, is forced to be placed inside a cage at the pound, ignored and unloved. The adorable little clump of fur looks so helpless under the harsh lighting and cramped cages, it’s a relief when he’s taken to a family, one that is maybe not the ideal scenario. In the first of the movie’s vignettes, wiener dog now finds himself in an upscale suburban home to parents Tracy Letts and Julie Delpy. Dad hates this little guy, he’s a stubborn sort. Mom, who is significantly warmer towards the pup, nonetheless has a much darker outlook on life as a whole.

But the family has a boy. And this little guy LOVES our little guy! Dad’s not too nice to him, and Mom is sharing some pretty heavy life lessons with this chap. But the little boy is delighted to have a furry little playmate! And he loves him and loves him and then loves him a little too much – the pup has too much junk food! The result is both what you’d expect, and nonetheless, impressively gross. Out our wiener dog goes, into the arms of a last-second savior, Dawn Wiener!

Gerwig’s Dawn is a successful adult, now a veterinarian, so she’s got a special interest in wiener dog’s safety. She takes the pup with her, but unwittingly ends up dragging our tiny mutt into the most awkward road trip, with Dawn’s old boyfriend/tormentor Brandon from “Dollhouse” (now played by a twitchy Kieran Culkin). Solondz, who has echoed Dawn throughout his movies, doesn’t put her through shame again, but actually does provide a surprisingly tough rehabilitation arc for Brandon, who realistically hasn’t conquered his demons at the end of this film, but is working on a few issues.

I should mention that this wiener dog has his own adorable theme song, and there’s even an intermission at the middle of the movie where he pats his little paws through all these silly animated backgrounds. I will go on record saying every movie, including but not limited to “The Brutalist”, should have such an intermission. They can really just play this same footage, and it would be fine.

Wiener Dog is now feeling like a bit of a mascot at that point, which makes it appropriate that now he links up with humanity’s mascot, Danny DeVito. Our diminutive Pokemon plays a college professor who is struggling professionally – his screenwriting students don’t respect him, and he can’t seem to get the juices flowing on a new screenplay, after he’s defined by the only other script he’s had produced. It’s clear that he has some highfalutin’ views, but his students just want to make disposable crap – a guess would be that Solondz is drawing on his own experiences as a college professor of film studies. Imagine your professor was Todd Solondz and you had to tell him, basically, that you aspired to be the fifth writer on a fourth sequel that already had a release date.

And now, I’ll level with you, dear reader: that storyline does not have a pleasant ending, though it is plenty funny. It’s not Solondz-level dark. However, our pup quickly lands in the lap of Ellen Burstyn, an elderly woman who is absolutely loathing her final years stuck in a retirement home. Granddaughter Zosia Mamet arrives with a new boyfriend in tow, learning that grandma’s cuddly new friend has been named Cancer. And then, well — oh, Todd Solondz, you know exactly what you’re doing, you sick little jerk. Solondz has made great movies, and this is yet another one. But, poor wiener dog – you didn’t need to put him through this. And that’s all I’ll say about that!

There’s a key plot point in one of the movie’s middle passages about drug addiction. It’s something that federal prison will barely address – federal crimes largely deal with interstate commerce, so the ratio of drug dealers to junkies is considerable. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there, and in some cases, their desire for drugs has only increased as a result of the idle hands of prison. I watched men become fiends – they would openly steal from those around them in order to feed their habits. I knew one man who was whacked out every night, and during the day he walked around selling bars of soap, for maybe $1.20 on the dollar.

Men would be standing against the window (no one goes outside after 8 PM), having rolled up a joint with whatever they could find – I understand some men were just smoking bird droppings. Synthetic marijuana – K2 – was the most prominent drug being used because it could not be detected via drug tests (which were random). There were drug addiction programs that addressed these desperate addictions, but they did so from a rational-based way of thinking. Addiction is not rational – it means giving up everything in spite of the fact you know you shouldn’t just so you can score that one exciting high. And when you’re caught on drugs, what happens? They throw you into the SHU and let you mellow out for five to ten months. Sometimes you receive a disciplinary report that extends your sentence for a few more months. It never solved anything. Though I do remember the one junkie who ended up in the SHU from September 2020 into February 2021, and I had to explain to him the insanity of the last few months, particularly January 6th. He didn’t believe a word I said was real.