| Plot |
As
L.A's most, if not only, successful playwright, Peter McGowan
(Kenneth Branagh) has hit a creative dry spell. After a
string of box office flops, his new play is set to open,
but the script isn't finished. McGowan decides to workshop
the production, and in the process has to navigate a minefield
of egos, feuding actors, and showbiz politics, ever cynical
of the schmooze and cruise scene his producer insists on
dragging him into. With his producer and cast insisting
the ten-year-old character in the play doesn't ring true,
he is challenged to develop a "real" child and
finds himself blocked.
At home, his wife Melanie (Robin Wright Penn), a children's
dance instructor, would like a child of her own, but Peter
isn't ready for more distractions; he has his play to complete
and his art itself to resurrect. Besides, his perpetually
confused mother-in-law (Lynn Redgrave) is living with them
and dealing with her is yet another challenge. On a good
day she recognizes Peter as someone who resembles her son-in-law;
at other times she chats with him about her imminent death.
Peter also realizes he is being stalked - by a fan who thinks
he's the real Peter. He reaches the brink of insanity when
the neighbor's new dog starts barking in the night, exacerbating
his insomnia.
When a recently separated woman and her young daughter Amy
(Suzi Hofrichter) move next door, Melanie recognizes an
opportunity to assuage her husband's awkwardness with children.
Peter sees an opportunity to craft that "real"
child for the play. Peter comes to enjoy hanging out with
Amy and his observations turn into something approximating
genuine affection. But a falling out between Peter and Amy's
overprotective mom, Trina, puts an end to their friendship.
By the time he is forced to say good-bye to Amy, his life
has changed - subtly to be sure - but changed nonetheless.
How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog veers from cynicism to affection
and back again on issues such as creativity, fame, impotence,
homelessness and physical handicaps. At its core, Neighbor's
Dog is about the power of words - how they are used creatively,
deceptively and, at times, dangerously; and how seemingly
innocuous statements can have dire consequences, and as
words often censured are harmless in the end when weighed
against those used in haste and anger. And it is how words
can be manipulated, bent and shaped to serve the purpose
of the narrator employing them to tell a story
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