Patrick

Part mystery, part black comedy, part metaphor for loss, Patrick is a nakedly true original. It also has the best caravan fight since Kill Bill Vol. 2.

It’s a film jam-packed with very good actors and big names, and suffused with a puppyish willingness to please. But where is the bite?

The script, credited to no more than three screenwriters (one of which being Vanessa Davies, who came up with the idea), is predictable and innocuous, yet peppered with comedic moments that are deserving of a chuckle or two, if only for the way they’re played by the talented cast.

For a “sweet nothing” of a movie, you kind of wish “nothing” wasn’t the most accurate description.

The whole enterprise seems like an advertisement for the breed, the ownership of which will apparently improve your life immeasurably while making a holy mess of it.

It’s not the most hideous of premises, particularly in early, ultimately fruitless, moments that suggest Patrick could be some sort of four-legged genie. But the film struggles to congeal, falling back on laboured gags set up with mechanical lack-of-ease.

While the eponymous star of this film is a fairly robust example of the breed, with eyeballs that appear to be securely wedged into its skull, there’s a frisson of anxiety whenever he’s on screen that undermines any attempts at comedy.