The Art of Racing in the Rain review: soppy dog drama with the depth and decorative value of a fridge magnet
Dir: Simon Curtis; Starring: Kevin Costner (voice), Milo Ventimiglia, Amanda Seyfried, Martin Donovan, Kathy Baker, Gary Cole. PG cert, 109 mins.
The Art of Racing in the Rain feels like such a jumble of half-formed ideas and grudging creative concessions that I was astonished to learn at the end that it had been adapted from a book, and not a month-long argument in a writers’ room. The source material for this entirely ludicrous melodramatic pick-and-mix is a 2008 novel by Garth Stein, in which the domestic travails of a struggling professional racing driver are narrated by his pet golden retriever.
In Simon Curtis’s screen version, the dog is voiced by Kevin Costner and the driver played by Milo Ventimiglia, who comes over here as a kind of decaf Casey Affleck. The story begins with old Enzo recumbent on the hallway floor in a puddle of his own making – for the avoidance of doubt, I’m talking about the dog here – and reflecting on a life well-lived, in a death’s-door soliloquy that serves as a voiceover track to the flashbacks that make up the rest of the film.
Costner delivers the mutt’s interior monologue in a perpetually crinkly eyed tone that pairs well for the most part with the honey-drizzled visuals, but which occasionally feels a little tonally askew, as if the first take didn’t quite land but was deemed good enough.
A considerably bigger problem is that it’s never entirely clear why the dog is there in the first place – which isn’t a criticism that could ever be levelled at Marley & Me, and certainly not A Dog’s Purpose, a film from a couple of years ago that reincarnated its canine lead four times, thus forcing us to blub at his demise five times over. Enzo is an accessory to the story at best, and does little more than watch through those wide, wet eyes as his master Denny ploughs through a tumultuous 15 years.
He meets and weds perky English teacher Eve (Amanda Seyfried), fathers an adorable daughter, Zoe (played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong as a child and Lily Dodsworth-Evans as a teenager), struggles to balance his racing and parenting duties, is shaken by sickness and tragedy, and becomes embroiled in an absurd legal feud with his wealthy in-laws (Martin Donovan and Kathy Baker) that plays like a subplot from a 1980s aspirational soap opera.
The odd, dog-free title refers to Denny’s flair for keeping his vehicle under control in torrential conditions: “You make the car skid before it skids itself,” is how Eve admiringly puts it. Naturally, this is developed by Enzo into a spurious life lesson – something about staying the course through crises – though the dog seemed rather more sold on its insight than I was.
The result is a film with the depth and decorative value of an inspirational fridge magnet – yet there is a certain degree of fun to be had in hearing Costner monologuing about tapeworm and then picturing him in the voiceover booth, possibly with his head in his hands.
And you’ll cry at the end, obviously. Only those with hearts of stone – or the staunchest cat partisans – could watch the wind billow through an old hound’s coat one final time and remain unmoved.
