WIENER-DOG

A dachshund has nine lives, too. At least it does in Todd Solondz’ latest zinger, an episodic social satire centered around a sausage-shaped canine and her various oddball owners. From consolation prize for a kid with cancer from her unfeeling parents (Julie Delpy and Tracy Letts), to cuddly baby for a shy veterinary nurse (Greta Gerwig as Dawn Wiener from Solondz’ WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE), spoiled by a merry couple with Down Syndrome, as companion to a despairing screenwriting professor (Danny DeVito) or an embittered crone (Ellen Burstyn).

“Students of the filmmaker’s exactingly composed mise-en-thropy will revel in the new pic’s freezing wit, jaundiced societal observation and inventive star casting, feeling the human ache in its glassy delivery… though it’s Burstyn whom viewers might find themselves unable to shake. Some episodes in Solondz’s omnibus are, by subtle degrees, more absurd than others; Burstyn’s resembles a halting nightmare within a dream, as the loveless grandmother she plays is confronted with the ghosts of a potentially infinite array of unlived lives.” –Guy Lodge, Variety