Sunday, August 5, 2012

“DARLING COMPANION” ISN’T


“DARLING COMPANION” ISN’T
Description: http://docs.google.com/pubimage?id=18Pg78M8Bt-PTQypib_x6RKeS5WBTfXSAeaQF1XNA9As&image_id=1ZHSesprjjFbXgLdPFDmk21JiAbhsM3EWith a title like “Darling Companion,” you know this Lawrence Kasdan film won’t be attracting many people with tattoos and pierced body parts.
The surprising thing is that Kasdan (“The Big Chill”) could take so much wonderful talent – Diane Keaton, Dianne Wiest, Kevin Kline and Richard Jenkins – and make such a totally dumb movie.
Filled with old hippie baloney about following your spirit guides while sticking it to the man, “Darling Companion” can’t even endow its cast with sincere innocence.
Is Kasdan genuinely dedicated to such babbling drivel? One would certainly think so, especially considering he wrote the script with wife Meg Kasdan.
Think of it this way. If you believe old guys with long gray hair pulled back in a ponytail can be sexy, “Darling Companion” might be for you.
That annoying title refers to a mixed breed collie mutt which has become the object of true affection for Beth Winter (Keaton), an emotionally starved woman with two adult daughters. She is married to the no-nonsense Dr. Winter (Kline).
With both daughters married, Beth believes the rest of her life will be an empty shell of merely existing. Randomly she sees this lost and wounded dog cast adrift at the edge of the Interstate, takes it home, names it Freeway, and suddenly her life has meaning.
All this gets set up in the first 20 minutes or so. Then the story jumps ahead a year and settles in a multimillion-dollar “log cabin” summer resort home somewhere in the Rockies, with banjo music on the soundtrack.
Dr. and Mrs. Winter have a few vacation days there with friends Penny (Wiest) and Russell (Richard Jenkins). Always on his cell phone, much to the annoyance of his wife, the good doctor is out walking Freeway without a leash when the dog suddenly bolts and runs into the woods…and never comes back.
So for what seems like several hours, these four people plus several minor characters scramble around the mountainside hunting for Freeway and having conversations about their relationships and the true meaning of life.
Pretty soon each of them has become so annoying and self-centered, applying passive-aggressive philosophy to serve their own needs, you’ll be cheering for Dr. Winter to smack them all up ’side the head. And Dr. Winter is the one Kasdan set up to be the villain.

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