Dean Spanley

Saddled with as oddball a premise as one could possibly envision, Dean Spanley certainly has its work cut out for it in terms of winning over the viewer – with the almost unbearably uneventful nature of the film’s opening hour certainly not helping matters. The story, set in the early 1900s, follows Jeremy Northam’s Fisk as he becomes increasingly entranced by a local religious man’s (Sam Neill’s Dean Spanley) alcohol-fueled recollections of a previous life in which he lived a simple and thoroughly fulfilling existence as a dog. Director Toa Fraser, working from Alan Sharp’s screenplay, initially places the emphasis on Fisk’s efforts at procuring the very specific liquor that seems to trigger Dean Spanley’s long lost memories, which he eventually accomplishes by hooking up with a well-connected fellow named Wrather (Bryan Brown). The deliberateness with which Fraser allows the proceedings to unfold, coupled with the downright pointless vibe that’s been hard-wired into Fisk’s early encounters with Dean Spanley, does ensure that the film often tests the limits of one’s patience, and yet there admittedly reaches a point at which one is slowly but surely drawn into the thin storyline. The film’s transformation from tedious ordeal to surprisingly engrossing drama is triggered by a fascinating sequence in which the title figure regales Fisk, Wrather, and Fisk’s father (Peter O’Toole, in an absolutely mesmerizing performance) with tales of his dogdom, which is ultimately followed by a series of revelations, mostly concerning O’Toole’s character, that ensure the final reel packs far more of an emotional wallop that one could’ve possibly anticipated (it’s just too bad about that first hour, however).

**1/2 out of ****