“Must Love Dogs”
Warner Bros. Pictures
Written and Directed by Gary David Goldberg
Based on the novel by Claire Cook
Starring: John Cusack, Diane Lane, Dermot Mulroney, Elizabeth Perkins and Christopher Plummer
Rated PG-13/98 minutes
Opened July 29, 2005
Two out of four stars
Imagine you are traveling to another dimension-a dimension in which movies have abandoned all semblance of plausibility.
Consider: Adam Sandler plays a quarterback in “The Longest Yard.” Orlando Bloom is the prettiest boy on the battlefield in “Kingdom of Heaven.” And now Diane Lane, a woman both beautiful and intelligent, plays a sad-sack divorce who believes she’s a lost cause in “Must Love Dogs.”
You have entered…The Twilight Zone.
In case that wasn’t clear, here it is in a nutshell: Gary David Goldberg’s “Must Love Dogs” is a romantic comedy that hinges on the far-fetched belief that Diane Lane could ever be dowdy and hopeless. Sorry, it just ain’t happenin’.
She plays Sarah, divorced, childless and content with shuffling around the house in her PJs on a Saturday night.
Oh, please-Lane could level a building with her confident gaze. Like she ever needs to worry about turning into a lonely, old hag with a dozen dogs.
It’s a role that calls out for someone truly dowdy. Janeane Garofolo would fit the bill-if she hadn’t already played the dowdy girl in “The Truth About Cats and Dogs.”
But that aside, “Must Love Dogs” is neither offensively bad nor exceptionally good. Once we begrudgingly accept Lane’s unbelievable character, we can watch the rest of the movie with a kind of detached interest.
Her sister (Elizabeth Perkins, out from hiding) puts Sarah’s profile on a singles Web site, which produces the kind of bad dates that only happen in the movies (desperately lonely guy cries, grotesque boaster wears a bad toupee, etc., etc.).
The winner of the bunch is Jake, played by John Cusack, doing his usual (but still charming) philosophical moper shtick. They meet at a dog park. Yes, the movie does work dogs in, not because they metaphorically mean anything, but because the name of the movie is “Must Love Dogs,” so those wag-happy canines have to show up sometime.
Of course, a string of stupid misunderstandings keep Lane and Cusack apart until the very end of the movie when…
The actors liven things up a bit. Christopher Plummer has a fun time squinting and saying grandly profound things as Sarah’s gallivanting dad and Perkins brings her special brand of cranky warmth to the nosy sister role.
In the end, “Must Love Dogs” is like that old mutt you see at the Humane Society-it’s sweet and all, but you wouldn’t protest if they dragged it out back and euthanized it.
