My Dog Skip
Official Site
by Sasha Stone
My Dog Skip is as manipulative as they come. It will spit you back out onto the street a soggy mess. The best ones usually do, leaving you happier than when you came in, your faith in humanity renewed, your essential goodness rising to the surface like turkey fat. Still, it's a refreshing change of pace from the usual eardrum-bursters injected into the psyches of our youth these days. There's a sweetness that's genuinely nostalgic.

Willie (Malcolm in the Middle's Frankie Muniz) feels awkward and alone as the only child in a small town full of big families. His mother (Diane Lane) worries that his only friend is the town's athletic hero (Luke Wilson) who is about to go off and fight in WWII, so when his birthday arrives (his only party guests are elderly ladies and his parents) she gives him a puppy. But Willie's stern, overprotective father (Kevin Bacon), afraid Willie is too young for such a responsibility, pries the puppy from his boy's arms. Willie's mother puts her foot down, sensing the puppy's unconditional love might help draw her son out of his loneliness. A friendship begins between a boy and his dog.

Because of Skip, or because of what Skip inspires in him, Willie is accepted by his peers and even captures the attention of the prettiest girl in town. It isn't that Skip is magically making things happen for Willie, it's more about the power of love - especially the utter devotion only a dog can provide.

Based on the 1995 memoirs of the writer, Willie Morris, and his fond recollections of his childhood dog and his hometown, Yazoo, Mississippi, My Dog Skip is an old-fashioned yarn with modern-day sensibilities - white southern folks who aren't entirely racist, young boys who sympathize with the deer slaughtered by hunters, war is ugly and hurts people. Because it's told in retrospect, there is the tendency to correct the past. For example, Willie shows interest in the best athlete in town who happens to be black. It's as if we need to know that Willie wasn't a racist in order to feel for him. It's a fair way of handling a past none of us feel comfortable with.

Directed by Jay Russell and written by Gail Gilchriest, My Dog Skip would probably wind up a forehead-slapper were it not for the convincing and understated performances of Muniz, Lane and Bacon. Muniz, in particular, is key. The entire film rests on his acting ability. This is the kind of film that could fall apart if the kid sounded insincere, like Henry Thomas in E.T. or Rick Schroeder in The Champ. With his big, goofy wide-eyed stare and gangly limbs, Muniz breaks your heart just looking at him, so half the work is done.

Diane Lane and Kevin Bacon are underused. Their stories start off promising but peter out and eventually disappear altogether, especially the mother. At least the father pops in now and again to teach his son a lesson or two, but his mother, set up in the beginning as one of the only ones to understand Willie, is oddly absent from the plot, just appearing now and then, smiling and crying alternately.

Willie Morris went on to attend Oxford and to become an accomplished writer. The film asks the question, what would have become of him without Skip? Clearly, he gives the little pooch much credit as his brother, teacher and friend. The film makes the point that those animals that help young children through the agony and ecstasy of childhood deservedly reach mythic proportions in our memory.