Get the latest gossip
‘Dog on Trial’ Review: A Movie-Star Mutt Bounds Off With This Canine Courtroom Comedy
Laetitia Dosch's 'Dog on Trial' delivers what its title promises, but surprises with its tonal swerves and the magnetic presence of its non-human MVP.
Called upon to jump, slump, tremble and even (sort of) sing, with an expressive range spanning untethered aggression and resigned melancholy, the biscuit-colored crossbreed hits every mark required of him by Laetitia Dosch ‘s endearingly eccentric directorial debut, and emerges as its most compelling element. This may sound like a premise from a more naïve era of family-friendly Hollywood creature comedies (“Beethoven’s Sixth Amendment,” perhaps), but Dosch’s script, co-written with “My Everything” director Anne-Sophie Bailly, leans hard into the absurdity of the idea while shooting for scathing adult satire. It’s top-heavy with story for such a slender-framed work, as sketchily developed strands involving Avril’s colleagues and her lonely young neighbor jostle for screen time with the more substantial and immediately relevant subplot of the lawyer’s growing attachment to Cosmos’s charming, court-appointed handler Marc (a winning Jean-Pascal Zadi), and the mistreated animal’s gradual softening under his care.
Or read this on Variety