Icarus Films will be joining forces with France’s premiere film production and distribution company, Distrib Films, on Dec. 8 for the domestic DVD rollout of director Yvan Attal’s My Dog Stupid.
Drawn from writer John Fante’s 2002 double-story novel, “West of Rome,” My Dog Stupid serves as a platform for Attal and his real-life wife, the lovely and very talented Charlotte Gainsbourg — who was been nominated for seven César Awards (France’s equivalent to the Oscars) — to have a good time … and it shows; a lovely comedy, a bit sad here and there, but very engaging.
Yvan Attal (My Wife Is an Actress, Bon Voyage, Rapt) plays the husband, Henri, who is a writer, but is suffering, not only from a writer’s block (that’s lasted a couple of decades), but a mid-life melancholy. His adult children still live at home … there is a lot of tension, not only between Henri and his children, one of which, Raphaël, is played by his real-life son, Ben Attal, but Henri’s wife, Cécile (Gainsbourg), who has grown weary of Henri’s bitterness.
Into this family malaise one day comes a rather large, ugly dog, who literally makes himself at home. Not only is the dog ugly and large and not too graceful, but he stinks, Henri names him “Stupid” … and his arrival is the “breath of fresh air” that Henri and his family have so desperately needed!!
The film is cleverly divided into seven segments, as Henri grows from a dislike of the beast to caring for it, and in the process is able to work through his own problems that have made his life, and the lives of those around him, so miserable. Comedy, pathos, blended nicely together.
My Dog Stupid is presented in French with English subtitles.
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