The Art of Racing in the Rain (PG, 109 mins)
Director: Simon Curtis
Stars: Kevin Costner, Milo Ventimiglia, Amanda Seyfried
Two stars
AN introductory scene in this thoroughly bizarre family drama clues us in on the kind of sentimental film we should expect to follow, as we meet Enzo, an old and possibly dying dog lying a puddle of his own making, waiting for his human to come home. How do we know these details? Because Enzo, as voiced by a gravelly Kevin Costner, is narrating the movie.
The dog, you see, has a soul, so we flash back to Enzo as a puppy, being selected from the litter by Denny (Ventimiglia) a racecar driver with a gift for, well, racing in the rain, and dreams of making it big in Formula 1. The early days are all adorable expressions and puddle accidents as Denny takes the dog everywhere with him, mostly the racetrack.
So far, so daft, but the cheesy nonsense of the plotting kicks up a notch when Eve (Seyfried) shows up and Denny balances driving and family life. For such a supposedly great driver, he doesn’t seem to be having much success although, mercifully, we’re not subjected to too much racing, in the rain or otherwise. It’s a metaphor, you see, but we’re still saddled with a clunky title the likes of which you’d only end up with if it were based on a book (which it is, by Garth Stein), aligned with the type of storytelling you can probably only get away with in novel form.
Enzo is forced to utter lines that border on the farcical, delivered with deadly sincerity by Costner, and you have to wonder if he could believe he was saying it, as the pooch talks about how much he learns about racing and life yet doesn’t seem to understand human behaviour when the plot or a gag requires it. The stuff the dog isn’t privy to is soap opera-level tragedies and cliched kid-friendly conflicts.
It just about stops short of “What’s that, Skippy, there’s a kid trapped down a well,” antics, but it’s a close call on occasion. Dog lovers may be more responsive, but it will be a strong constitution that can stomach something which is this intensely schalmtzy, and, ultimately, downright risible.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here