About the Film
An apprehended man is brought to a detention center in the middle of the night. He looks weird and mysterious. Not knowing what to do with him, an agent summons psychiatrist Evelyn to help. Thanks to her gentleness and tact, the man opens up to her: his name is Doug, and he loves dogs. During a long day Doug shares his life with Evelyn, because he feels that they have something in common: pain.
Doug’s life is made of trauma and rejection, a childhood lived with a cruel brother and an inhuman and violent father who ends up first by locking him up with the dogs he raises for fighting (probably the ones intended to agitate and be mauled, by real dog fighters) then by shooting at him condemning Doug for life to a wheelchair. An adolescence spent from foyer to foyer with only one joy, his drama teacher thanks to whom he discovered Shakespeare whom he learned by heart and performed with her. As an adult, thanks to a degree in biology, he manages to get a job at a dog shelter. A joy that is short-lived, the shelter is closed and Doug finds himself looking for work and being turned down for every menial task imaginable, (the low angle of the shots masterfully intensifies his humiliation as a disabled man). Unexpectedly, when he has lost all hopes, he finds a job in a drag bar thanks to his arresting performance as Edith Piaf singing La Foule. Meanwhile, he turns an abandoned place into a home he shares with the shelter dogs from which he has never been separated. Doug has a total affective fusion with them, who not only help him with daily chores but prove to be perfectly trained bodyguards and thieves.
A brief period of happiness before events precipitate and Doug finds himself facing Evelyn, bloodied and resigned.
Besson employs his uncanny ability to master genres and blend them together to construct a moving metaphor of the suffering one can experience when faced with rejection by those he loves, with abandonment, loneliness, and betrayal. In it, the dogs represent the saving and unexpected power of those who can give, unreservedly, with faithful generosity, selflessness, and perfect love. The terrific performance of Caleb Landry Jones as Doug gives the film a powerful emotional force.
Teresa Cavina
