Darling Companion (Lawrence Kasdan, 2012): USA

Reviewed by Angel Martinez. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

This year’s opening film for the 27th Santa Barbara International Film Festival was Darling Companion by Lawrence Kasdan. Santa Barbara was lucky enough to have some of the cast and crew of the film which included Diane Keaton, Kevin Kline, Jay Ali, Ayelet Zurer, and the director himself, introduce the movie. Kasdan who had not made a feature in nine years prior to this film, has quite a reputation under his belt with writing credits for such big films as Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back as well as directing credits for films like The Big Chill, Body Heat¸and Silverado to name a few.

When Beth Winter (Keaton) and her daughter Grace (Elisabeth Moss of Mad Men fame) find an injured dog on the side of the road, Beth feels compelled to do everything in her power to revive this dog, she takes him to the vet only to be informed that if no one claims him he will be put down. Not being able to stand the thought, Beth brings the dog along home now with a name, Freeway. Her husband, Joseph (Kline) a surgeon who spends too much time work and not enough at home, instantly does not like the thought of a dog in their home, but Beth assures him that it’s temporary. Meanwhile, the veterinarian, Sam (Jay Ali) who frequents around the house to check up on Freeway, and Grace begin to really hit it off, an attraction that was implied from that first visit to the vet. Fast forward into the future, and we now see Grace and Sam getting married somewhere in the mountains. While Grace and Sam go off to their honeymoon, the attendees such as Joseph’s nephew (Mark Duplass), his sister (Diane Wiest) and her new zany boyfriend, Russell (Richard Jenkins), as well as a gypsy stock character, Carmen (Zurer) all decide to stay behind for a couple days before they head on home, but when Freeway runs off into the woods one day, they go on a search to bring back this new member of the family and take him home.

This was my first time attending the Santa Barbara Film Festival. I enjoyed the experience of the event such as seeing the great cast (with remarkable names) from the film and the act itself of getting that many people in the majestic Arlington theater to watch a film, but I have to say that this opening film was probably the worst movie I saw out of all the films that I saw at the festival. Kasdan, the director whose first feature, Body Heat was essentially a sexy noir thriller without the restrictions of the classic production code, returned to cinema with one of the most predictable, safe , and boring stories of a lost dog. From start to finish this movie in my opinion was just god awful. Although containing many awards winning actors, the performances by these wonderful actors in this film did not come across. I adhere this to the quality of the camera, which I would say was neither bad nor good, but just there, as well as the editing which felt incredibly choppy and rushed the whole time. While one could certainly tell this was a Kasdan film through the dialogue and structure that resembled The Big Chill, the editing in this movie was horrid and not only did the acting suffer because of it, but the jokes suffered as well. Anyone who is into comedy knows that is very much interconnected with a certain rhythm and time, but the comic timing in this film never really let the jokes breathe. Part of Kasdan’s The Big Chill success lies in the soundtrack which sold millions of copies by itself, and that spoke to a whole generation, the music in Darling Companion would not have as much success. These are mostly aesthetic flaws mentioned, but the story itself was one of the most predictable pieces I have seen in a long time, with each plot point being spotted from a mile away. The only thing dangerous about this movie is its underlying message it carries about the reaction one should take in heterosexual relationships when things are not working out and the naivety that it has that things will work out in the end. They don’t always do.