MY DOG SKIP
US, 2000, 95 minutes, Colour.
Frankie Muniz, Diane Lane, Luke Wilson, Kevin Bacon, Bradley Coryell.
Directed by Jay Russell.
My Dog Skip is the perfect film for dog lovers. It is based on A Mississippi Memoir by Willie Morris. He remembers his being a shy child in Mississippi in the 1940s but, on his ninth birthday, he is given the present of a dog. The dog is Skip – and becomes popular throughout the town and enables Willie to come out of himself. Frankie Muniz, best known for Malcolm in the Middle and the Agent Cody Banks films, is Willie. Diane Lane and Kevin Bacon are strong performers who play his parents. Luke Wilson also appears.
The film is a memoir, a look at America in the 1940s during the period of World War Two. The film enables audiences to see the ethos of the time and how it shaped adults.
The film was nominated for many awards for the best family film for 2000, winning quite a number of them. It was directed by Jay Russell who made The End of the Line in the 1980s and then no film until this one. During the period after 2000 he made the popular story Tuck Everlasting with William Hurt and Sissy Spacek as well as the action adventure about firemen, Ladder 49.
1. A pleasing family film? A film for families, about families, about children and growing up? Parenting? A film of nostalgia for the United States of the 1940s? The memoirs of the author? The meaning of his childhood and its influence on his later life?
2. The re-creation of Mississippi in the 1940s, the influence of Norman Rockwell paintings? The idealism? The house, the town, the street, the black population? The movies? Baseball? The importance of words? The musical score?
3. The film as a memoir, the perspective of the adult, the sentiment – especially in the finale?
4. Audience response to dogs, the human best friends, the dog for the only child, an object of affection, care and responsibilities, protecting a dog? Having a dog as a pet as a learning experience?
5. Skip, presence, cute, affectionate, tricks, the army, the bootleggers, the girl?
6. Willie Morris and his memoir? With his parents, aged eight and nine, the only child, the sternness of his father, the tenderness of his mother? Being alone? His books, not having any friends, his being bullied? The birthday and the gifts? His aunt, the gift of the dog? The father and his refusing permission? The mother and the dog in the bed? The shopkeepers? The bullies? The girl and her attention?
7. Dad, the memories of the past, the legacy of the civil war? His leg, with his wife? Hunting the deer? The judge? His tolerance – especially for baseball? The portrait of Willie’s mother, tender, vivacious? The car and school?
8. The character portrait of the various kids, at school, in relationship to Willie? Their changing? The test and the cemetery? The bootleggers? The influence of Skip? Later, Skip, Big Boy Wilkinson?
9. The show and tell, Dis? The hero and friend? Sport, the parents, the cap as a gift? The letter? The arrival, the drinking, the killing, the bootleggers? Not going to watch? The place of his father in this crisis?
10. The background of the war effort, the movies, the glimpses of Hitler, the repercussions for the small town?
11. The black members of the community, friendship, the entrances for the blacks, sport and success?
12. The role of baseball, Skip and the baseball? Hitting Skip? The reactions? The search? The river and the sharing?
13. The overview of the period, the changes in Willie, the changes in his parents, his school friends? The Jenkins family? His going off to college? An enjoyable piece of Americana?
