Lawn Dogs is a coming-of-age fable about 10-year-old Devon adjusting to her new life living in an opulent gated community somewhere in Louisville (shoutout Slint), befriending 21-year-old gardener Trent in the process, and the ensuing complications that arise from their burgeoning friendship. The film takes a softer, more gentle approach to its exploration of the seedy underbelly just lurking beneath Everyday Suburban America™ and the stripping of one's innocence, at least when compared to its contemporaries such as American Beauty, Happiness and Little Children. There's some unpleasant sequences and uncomfortable imagery sprinkled throughout, but it's chump change compared to the work of Todd Solondz — which I'm entirely grateful for. I did not want another Welcome to the Dollhouse on my hands, although the film very nearly goes there multiple times throughout.
Instead of going for the jugular using gallows humour like the others, Lawn Dogs unfolds in a more straight and matter-of-factly way. There's bits and bobs of that '90s independent black comedy spirit laying dormant in every scene or so but I'd hesitate to call this anything but a tender drama — and a rather metaphysical one in the back-end. In the final act, Lawn Dogs shifts into truly dark, tense, emotional and downright bizarre territory in such a way that it just needs to be seen to be believed. If I had to describe it, it like as if a crime thriller crossed wires with a magical realist fairy tale and got dropped into the middle of a domestic drama, and it's one helluva sight to behold.
Speaking of sights, despite it only existing in 480p DVDRip quality, the cinematography breaks through the pixels on my screen and hits me right where it matters — the feels. The colours of suburbia are lush and wistful with a tinge of pastel blue and green, the woods where Trent lives are swampy and sweaty and ever so brown and murkier green, oh and don't even get me started on the landscape vistas. What I'm saying is that the cinematography is striking and rich, laden with an air of tentative nostalgia for a bygone era of a place and time in the US that, when compounded with the thematically dark narrative about the loss of childhood innocence, makes the film that much more emotionally resonant.
Lawn Dogs is a good film. It's hard to digest at times, and quite a bit confounding — and in all honesty it feels like events sometimes just sort of occur without much reasoning — but it all clicks in to place come the end.
Lawn Dogs is a coming-of-age fable about 10-year-old Devon adjusting to her new life living in an opulent gated community somewhere in Louisville (shoutout Slint), befriending 21-year-old gardener Trent in the process, and the ensuing complications that arise from their burgeoning friendship. The film takes a softer, more gentle approach to its exploration of the seedy underbelly just lurking beneath Everyday Suburban America™ and the stripping of one's innocence, at least when compared to its contemporaries such as American Beauty, Happiness and Little Children. There's some unpleasant sequences and uncomfortable imagery sprinkled throughout, but it's chump change compared to the work of Todd Solondz — which I'm entirely grateful for. I did not want another Welcome to the Dollhouse on my hands, although the film very nearly goes there multiple times throughout.
Instead of going for the jugular using gallows humour like the others, Lawn Dogs unfolds in a more straight and matter-of-factly way. There's bits and bobs of that '90s independent black comedy spirit laying dormant in every scene or so but I'd hesitate to call this anything but a tender drama — and a rather metaphysical one in the back-end. In the final act, Lawn Dogs shifts into truly dark, tense, emotional and downright bizarre territory in such a way that it just needs to be seen to be believed. If I had to describe it, it like as if a crime thriller crossed wires with a magical realist fairy tale and got dropped into the middle of a domestic drama, and it's one helluva sight to behold.
Speaking of sights, despite it only existing in 480p DVDRip quality, the cinematography breaks through the pixels on my screen and hits me right where it matters — the feels. The colours of suburbia are lush and wistful with a tinge of pastel blue and green, the woods where Trent lives are swampy and sweaty and ever so brown and murkier green, oh and don't even get me started on the landscape vistas. What I'm saying is that the cinematography is striking and rich, laden with an air of tentative nostalgia for a bygone era of a place and time in the US that, when compounded with the thematically dark narrative about the loss of childhood innocence, makes the film that much more emotionally resonant.
Lawn Dogs is a good film. It's hard to digest at times, and quite a bit confounding — and in all honesty it feels like events sometimes just sort of occur without much reasoning — but it all clicks in to place come the end.
