Dog Days

Imagine if every character from Love, Actually owned a dog and you have the basic formula for Ken Marino’s sophomoric feature film Dog Days. It’s a sappy collection of stories from a seemingly random collection of people who then become mixed up with one another through happenstance. Unfortunately, the story is nowhere near as charming as the loveable pooches it presents, and audiences are left with a film that is more than a little ruff around the edges.

Dog Days revolves around a handful of different stories. Elizabeth (Nina Dobrev) is a newly single news anchor after walking in on her boyfriend with another woman. Tara (Vanessa Hudgens) is a simple barista who has been longing for the hot doctor who comes into her coffee shop every morning. Walter (Ron Cephas Jones) loses his dog after a confrontation with the local pizza delivery boy (Finn Wolfhard). Kurt (Rob Corddry) and Grace (Eva Longoria) struggle with parenthood after adopting Amelia (Elizabeth Phoenix Caro), who hasn’t quite warmed up to them yet. Dax (Adam Pally) agrees to take in his sister’s dog after she goes into labor with twins.

There’s a lot going on in this film. So much so that it’s exhausting to keep track of it all, especially towards the beginning. Just as something gets interesting, say when Elizabeth finds out that her boyfriend is cheating on her, the film will cut to a different scene and switch gears completely. It constantly feels like it’s in a rush to get through everyone’s story. As a result, it does a pretty terrible job at making any of them at all compelling. But hey, at least the dogs are cute.

The real stars of Dog Days aren’t the actors but the pets. They’re all adorable and are frankly the only reason to watch the film. Even then, there’s only so much attention they can grab for its near two hour runtime. Everything else feels like a chore to get through. It’s your typical sappy and predictable romcom story but with the addition of dogs. In the end, it’s nothing special.