The Dogwalker

Rather than being self-indulgent or pretentious, however, the film comes up with many believable details and changes in direction that enrich the bittersweet central relationship of the two leads.

The sort of movie that you'd see on Lifetime if that channel actually respected its viewers' taste and intelligence, Jacques Thelemaque's feature directorial debut has been kicking around the festival circuit for five years, and now finally comes to theaters in a leaner cut that jettisons an extraneous subplot to get to the core of its human story.

While there are moments throughout when the film looks primed to break out of the indie arthouse ghetto, it never quite pulls it off.

Extremely bleak but occasionally compelling debut feature.

The plot of this character-driven drama is slender and the digital images rather muddy--apparently an impoverished indie feature can look bad and still not be very interesting--but to his credit, Thelemaque sticks to his minimalist turf. And the dogs are great.

There seems to be a high level of personal commitment to the project. It is then all the more disappointing that such effort went into something that comes off so hollow and uninspired.

Gordon, she of the Selma Diamond voice and mournful glare, is by far the most interesting aspect in a picture that might be termed unreleasably dull, if it weren't in fact in release at the moment en route to DVD.