Film

My Life as a Dog

Name: My Life as a Dog
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Released: 1985
Cast: Anton Glanzelius, Tomas von Brömssen, Anki Lidén, Melinda Kinnaman, Kicki Rundgren

Coming-of-age

A Swedish boy sent to live with relatives tries to make sense of his unhappiness by comparing himself to famous underdogs and real suffering. Funny and heartbreaking in the same breath, it finds profound wisdom in a child's sideways logic. For anyone who's felt displaced, or who remembers what it was like to be young and convinced your problems were uniquely unbearable.

TMDb rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy small-town portraits where a child's bruised logic and the grown-ups' odd kindness sit side by side, funny and sad in the same breath.

Skip it if you want a plot that keeps tightening, since this drifts from one vignette to the next and lingers on small moments rather than building toward anything.

What it asks of you: Unhurried and episodic, it runs just over an hour and forty minutes and wants you to settle into its summer rhythms rather than chase its emotional beats.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

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