Lawrence Kasdan’s Darling Companion, which he co-wrote with his wife Meg, is a perfectly serviceable family drama centered on a dog. It’s unclear, however, who its audience is. Although it features an animal, which is typically kid territory, it’s too long and slow for a young audience. (Besides, it’s rated PG-13.) And although it does deal with adult issues like empty nest syndrome and professional ageism, it doesn’t do so very seriously. It might be a safe bet for your mom’s movie group because, well, it plays it safe.
One can feel the good intentions with which Darling Companion was made, as the Kasdans based it on their own experience of losing their mutt in the Colorado Rockies. In the film, Beth (Diane Keaton) is struggling with having no one to mother—one of her daughters lives in New York with her husband and child; the other, Grace (Elisabeth Moss), is in grad school—when she rescues a dog abandoned on the side of the highway. She names him Freeway, and, despite objections from her grumpy surgeon husband Joseph (Kevin Kline), takes him home.
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