How do you explain death to a dog?
Writer/directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel have done a rare thing, in adapting Sigrid Nunez’s award-winning 2018 novel. They’ve retained the book’s heart, while making the story more accessible to a general audience.
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| Iris (Naomi Watts) reluctantly realizes that her massive canine companion likely won't be able to handle a revolving door. |
Iris (Naomi Watts), a successful author, lives in a 500-square-foot, rent-controlled, upper-floor Manhattan apartment that she “inherited” when her father died. She teaches creative writing at a nearby college, silently enduring her students’ efforts to critique each others’ efforts; she seems not to pay attention, but misses nothing.
Her best friend and longtime mentor, Walter (Bill Murray), is an elder statesman in New York’s literary scene. We meet him during a lively dinner party, where he regales everybody with the saga of how — while jogging one morning — he glanced up a park hill and was transfixed by a “magnificent beast.”
Then, abruptly, he’s gone.
The subsequent funeral is well-attended by numerous friends, along with ex-wife No. 1 (Carla Gugino, as Elaine), ex-wife No. 2 (Constance Wu, as Tuesday) and his current widow (Noma Dumezweni, as Barbara). Elaine and Iris were college mates, back in the day, and Walter was their professor: an unapologetic, old-school womanizer.
His only child is a twentysomething daughter, Val (Sarah Pidgeon), fathered with yet another woman.
Despite the serial philandering, and a tendency toward condescension, Iris adored him. His absence worsens the writer’s block that has long delayed her next project: a collaborative effort with Val, to comb through Walter’s voluminous correspondence, in order to produce a book of essays. That project was suggested by Walter, as a means to take Iris’ mind off her long-unfinished next novel.
Iris goes through the motions, during the next few days, grief etched on her face. Then she’s summoned by Barbara, who has a “delicate matter” to deal with: getting rid of Walter’s dog, Apollo.
“You were his contingency plan,” she tells the genuinely surprised Iris, who knew nothing of this.
But the request is impossible. Iris has no pets, and if she did, it would be a cat. More crucially, her apartment building doesn’t allow dogs.
Even so, Iris is dismayed — upon learning that Barbara has put the dog into a kennel — and dutifully heads to the facility, to bail him out.
The “reveal” is priceless, when the handler returns with Apollo (played by Bing): a 150-pound, black-and-white Great Dane (a rare color for the breed).
Apollo allows himself to be taken by Iris, who brings him home. He balks at entering the building’s elevator, but dutifully accompanies her up several flights of stairs, and into her apartment. He immediately plops onto her bed, favoring her with the saddest eyes imaginable.
(Let it be said: Best. Dog. Actor. Ever. Bing isn’t a professional; he’s an Iowa-based family dog who was discovered by the filmmakers after an exhaustive six-month search.)
Bing’s quietly forlorn expression, as he watches Iris, is shattering.
Although this premise often would fuel a dumb Disney comedy, McGehee and Siegel don’t go anywhere near such territory. Yes, what follows has plenty of gentle humor, as the days pass, but not at the expense of these two characters.
Watts delivers a superbly nuanced performance, as a woman close to wit’s end, while she struggles to navigate the specter of grief, the anxiety of writer’s block, and the needs of this enormous, heart-broken dog. Bing is Watts’ equal; the directors and animal behaviorist Bill Berloni get an amazing performance out of this massive pooch. Changes of expression, suddenly cocked ears, an abrupt glance to one side ... every aspect of Bing’s behavior perfectly suits the demands of a given scene.
Iris initially assumes that she’ll re-home Apollo, and attempts to do so, but we don’t believe that for a second. The dog is a vibrant, vital reminder of Walter ... and, at the risk of reading too much into Bing’s performance, Apollo likely values her as a similar link to his absent best friend.
But this becomes an increasingly dire problem, because the building super — Felix Solis, note-perfect as Hektor — repeatedly warns that the dog’s presence threatens her with eviction. How could a just-barely-hanging-on author ever find another affordable place to live?
Compelling as the story is, this film also is an actor’s showcase. Flashbacks allow us to spend more time with Walter, and Murray was made for this role. He’s a natural as an intelligent, mildly pompous curmudgeon, albeit — and this is important — with kind eyes. His chats with Iris, inevitably laden with quotes by other writers, are friendly and respectful, his hangdog gaze frequently showing concern.
The impressively busy Gugino sparkles as Elaine, who has her own complicated memories of Walter. Her revived friendship with Iris is endearing; Watts and Gugino share the strong bond of perpetual besties able to effortlessly continue a conversation they might have started years earlier.
Pidgeon is a mild hoot as Val: energetically youthful, quick with a smile, often with a mischievous glint in her eyes. She’s also more blunt than the other, older characters.
Dumezweni’s Barbara is regal and intimidating: the sort of person who immediately makes everybody else uncomfortable. Wu makes Tuesday the pluperfect bitch; one cannot imagine what Walter ever saw in her.
In a nod to this film’s erudite atmosphere, McGehee and Siegel populate minor roles with a couple of literary lions. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Bruce Norris is spot-on as a perceptive veterinarian who instinctively senses that Apollo is a “good dog”; Academy Award-winning screenwriter Tom McCarthy is equally fine as a psychiatrist Iris visits, at a telling moment.
This marvelous film is profound, intimate and deeply poignant: a master class of well-crafted characters who reveal volumes about the human condition.
And, needless to say, we all would be lucky to have an Apollo in our lives.
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