科比(艾米利奥·艾斯特维兹 Emilio Estevez 饰)深陷感情的漩涡无法自拔;比利(罗伯·劳 Rob Lowe 饰)不安定的生活让妻子最终选择了带着孩子离开;凯文(安德鲁·麦卡锡 Andrew McCarthy 饰)苦苦的希望能够得到心上人的垂怜;朱尔斯(黛米·摩尔 Demi Moore 饰)的生活从来都谈不上什么一帆风顺;埃里克(贾德·尼尔森 Judd Nelson 饰)深爱着妻子却总也管不住自己的下半身;莱斯利(艾丽·西蒂 Ally Sheedy 饰)对凯文的深情似乎一无所知;温蒂(梅尔·温宁汉姆 Mare Winningham 饰)早已厌倦了什么都被拿来和优秀的妹妹作比较的生活。
Facing a long winter of lockdown and combating a bad case of writer’s block, filmmaker Eric agrees to get a dog with his girlfriend Allie. A modern couple – vegan, ethical, millennial, neurotic – much research and negotiation leads to the arrival of Milly, a rescue from the Dominican Republic. This sets off a riotous chain of new challenges on how to best deal with this addition to the household. As Eric contends with a sinister dog-training programme, his introspection spills out onto his film work, with poor Allie and Milly taken along for the ride. The couple each pursue their own deepheld individual questions surrounding trust, purpose and roots, while wrestling with the idea of what it means to be a modern family. Milly, in the meantime, has a lot on her paws with these two!
Part rom-com, part rescue-dog story, part autofiction, part self-indictment, part family scrapbook, this debut feature was made with remarkable economy and displays a disquieting amount of (often hilarious) emotional authenticity. Filmmaker Ben Petrie and creative collaborator Grace Glowicki play the young couple and in doing so, capture nothing less than what it means to be human.