Streaming on Hulu,
Darling Companion (2012) is easy viewing and a welcome change from the news of the day. Instead of migrants flooding America's biggest cities or looters ransacking department stores, watching a star-studded cast exercising their considerable acting skills is downright heartening. And for an hour and 43 minutes you can forget your own troubles and watch other people wallow in theirs.
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| Keaton and Freeway at bath time. |
A family drama concerned with old-fashioned relationship problems between husband Joseph Winter (
Kevin Kline) and his wife Beth (
Diane Keaton), the "darling companion" of the title is neither spouse but rather an adorable dog named Freeway. After the dog disappears while on a walk in the woods with Joseph, Beth is even
more unhappy with her distracted, work-obsessed husband. A three-day search ensues, involving visiting family members and a few townspeople, with problems befalling all of the searchers.
A lame script is the biggest problem with this film, but even that doesn't dampen the fun of seeing Keaton, Kline, Dianne Weist and Richard Jenkins running around -- and around and around -- the stunning mountainous landscape (allegedly Lake Tahoe but actually it was filmed in Utah). There are also a few scenes with a young Elizabeth Moss before she became famous on Mad Men and Sam Shepard as a barely-recognizable local sheriff.
Be prepared: If you're a dog-lover, you might cry.
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