Film review: Dean Spanley

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At first, it was ponderous, it was difficult and - for a moment - the idea of walking out was tempting.

Then, like magic, inside a scene or two, Dean Spanley revealed its quirky brilliance.

It's more a play than a movie. There are no action sequences, no romances; the colours seem washed out and film values are almost mundane.

But it is the story itself that makes Spanley so marvellous

It is about dogs; a riotous, fabulous tribute to canines and a savage critique of the low ways of cats, set in a wintery Victorian Norfolk, England, at a time when gentlemen were polite and unemotional.

The story is intricate and requires considerable setting up, calling for the patience of its audience.

A local rich cricket-playing Indian Nawab hosts a talk on reincarnation, attended by churchman Dean Spanley (Sam Neill) and Young Fisk (Jeremy Northam) with his father Old Fisk (Peter O’Toole).

Spanley has a taste for a powerful Eastern European wine, tokaji. It seems it carries him back to a previous incarnation - the essence of the story.

Dean Spanley was funded by the New Zealand Film Commission and has nothing particularly to do with us.

It is directed by Toa Fraser, British born - of Fijian mother ­- who cut his play writing teeth here, notably with No. 2.

The build up nearly dies under Young Fisk’s dull narration until Wrather (Bryan Brown) enters the scene.

Unquestionably Australian, his role in life is vague and Fraser sets him delightfully in a billiard room a woman - who say nothing but lend an air of sensuality otherwise absent in the movie.

O’Toole is brilliant playing the grumpy old man and then, later in the movie, effecting a transformation.

He plays the sadness of a man alone, left with no way to explain himself, with simple honesty.

Honours go to Neill; it is among his finest performances. The canine way he reacts to tokaji suggests he has taken method acting to its high point.

Dean Spanley will never be a box office sensation and it will not necessarily appeal to all.

But it is an intelligent, kind and gentle movie, with a lovely tale and a message about the glories of dogs and baying at the Moon.

And every man, it seems, should have a dog.

Dean Spanley
Director: Toa Fraser
Staring: Jeremy Northam, Sam Neill, Bryan Brown, Peter O’Toole.
Rated
Trailer: Flicks.co.nz

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- © Fairfax NZ News