This is the story of an ordinary dachshund. Taken to a shelter, he is shunted from family to family, and as a result from one adventure to another misadventure. He lives with a child who has survived a cancer and clings to him much to his mother’s exasperation, then to a woman off course who takes up with a former classmate she meets accidentally, then to a frustrated screenwriter turned teach at a film school, as well as to a bitter, lonely old lady.

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Todd Solondz is definitely a different kind of filmmaker. With movies like Welcome to the Dollhouse, Dark Horse and Happiness, he has always taken a perverse pleasure in taking apart the American dream with cutting and politically incorrect humor. Wiener Dog (in which he again references previous films, this time with the return of Dawn Wiener, the heroine of Welcome to the Dollhouse) is certainly not his best film, and doesn’t do justice to the genius of this independent American filmmaker. There are, however, enough original moments and offbeat characters (perfectly played by Julie Delpy, Greta Gerwig, Danny DeVito and Ellen Burstyn) to make this a delightful movie, which mocks humanity with a joyful cruelty.