THE DOG STARS is a grim and loping thing that circles its points without the energy to transmute them into the powerful statement they were meant, and that they need, to be. Alas. As a speculation on what a post-apocalyptic America might be, it is not without its merits, but as a filmed entertainment, its hushed tones punctuated with graphic violence prevent even the most ardent admirer of Ridley Scott from shaking his or her head and longing for a better edit.
A virus has wiped out civilization as we know it leaving only pockets of survivors. Some of them eke out an existence peacefully, others have turned feral and prey upon the former. Among those former are Hig (Jacob Elordi), a mechanic who keeps a vintage Cessna flying and is inseparable from his dog, Jasper, and Bangley (Josh Brolin), his partner in the apocalypse keeping watch over their patch of land with solar power, greenhouses, and a slew of planes on hand for spare parts. We learn much of the pre-apocalypse lives of these two over the course of the film, and the slow reveal is one of the strongest parts of the narrative. These mysterious men, obviously bonded with mutual respect and grudging affection, but with diametrically opposing views on how to survive the collapse, have a dynamic that is comfortable in his confrontational nature. They play poker with now useless money, they spar over the intentions of strangers newly killed by Bangley, and remain on high alert for the Reapers, a new and even more feral group of marauders invading their part of Colorado. Hig, however, has heard a garbled broadcast from Grand Junction and is determined to see if things are better there. The arguments over this with Bangley serve to further refine their different paradigms, and the farewell when Hig finally takes off is a study in how to use understatement to effectively express deep feelings.
Once beyond the safety of his compound, Hig becomes the stranger, with all the potentially fatal consequences thereof, to a rancher, Pops (Guy Pearce) and his daughter. Cima (Margaret Qualley) when he chances upon them in their homestead. There is a predictable, but well-handled, attraction between Cima and Hig with Pops providing the sort of light comedy of a father not entirely approving of his daughter’s choices.
If the pacing and the narrative flow leave something to be desired, the performances and visuals are a powerful tonic to that deficiency. Elordi is grief personified, kept going only by the ties he feels for Jasper and the constant visits to his old home and the bittersweet memories that come to life there for him. It is stoicism as a mechanism of self-defense to keep going if only for the dog. Pearce is suitably crusty with just enough humanity showing to make his irascibility endearing while Qualley finds depths in a woman with her own specific sets of grief who has chosen life without leaving the dead behind. It is Allison Janney, though, who cracks the film wide open with a larger-than-life take on the queen bee of a stronghold delighted to be dominated by her. A smiling embodiment of what is most ruthless about civilization, her character is the expression of all that is wrong with humanity but in a more chilling fashion than the brute candor of feral mobs.
Visually, there is much to admire be it the nightmare images of a nighttime raid that blends fire and night-vision goggles to the monumental implications of refilling a shot glass with the last of the whiskey. The is a juxtaposition of the, ahem, heavenly peace of being in flight and the dicey situations on the ground. The is the idyllic Mennonite farm to which Hig delivers supplies despite Bangley’s misgivings about virus exposure, and the burned-out remnants of Eerie, where grass grows in the pavement cracks, and a Christman tree gathers dust in the lobby of a civic building turned triage center, also gathering dust.
THE DOG STARS is a testament to Scott’s ability to envision a story. The emotions resonate and the tension, when given the right editing, overwhelm. Further alas, characters that are rich and richly rendered are lost in the slow shuffle, and that is the real tragedy.
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