"Sleeping Dogs Lie."

[Reposted in slightly altered form from here.]

Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait's second directorial effort "Sleeping Dogs Lie" is sort of a social experiment — like, what if you tried to make a fairly straightforward romantic comedy fueled by a truly over-the-top premise? We're talking more ridiculous than having to get your gay best friend to pretend he's your fiancé so that you can make your ex jealous at his wedding. More ridiculous than pretending the guy you had a crush on is your fiancé after he ends up in a coma. More ridiculous than...well, romantic comedies are already fucked up, when you lay it out like that.

Amy (Melinda Page Hamilton, last seen as the nun on "Desperate Housewives") was in college when she impulsively got a little too friendly with her pet dog. Years later, she's engaged to John (Bryce Johnson), an aspiring writer and seemingly nice guy who will insist on their telling each other all their darkest secrets, now that they're about to get married. On a trip to introduce him to her eccentric parents, Amy is persuaded to spill the one thing she might have good reason to be reluctant to share — and it doesn't go over so well, particularly once her mom, dad and meth-addict brother are also informed.

Dirty talk aside, "Sleeping Dogs Lie" is startlingly forthright — it really attempts to imagine how people would react at hearing that their sweet, blonde, kindergarten-teaching daughter/girlfriend once gave a canine hummer. Amy spends a good part of the film in tears over the wreckage of her relationships. Wacky hijinks, there ain't.

We can honestly say we had no idea where "Sleeping Dogs Lie" was going — it does expand out into territory not covered by your average festival flick, and in that it felt fresh. But it does still feel like a festival flick, something that was probably a pleasant, slight and slightly titillating surprise at Sundance, but that on screen in theaters seems more than a little amateurish. The scenes are timed awkwardly; the cinematography ranges from bluntly functional to awful, and the acting leaves something to be desired. The film has an admirably frank attitude about sex and a socially pragmatic heroine who knows when enough is enough, but it never escapes its own novelty niche. It does manage, in a slightly off-key instrumental rendition of Roy Orbison's "You Got It," one of the funnier musical cues we can think of. More of that would have been nice.

Opens in limited release October 20th.

+ "Sleeping Dogs Lie" (Roadside Attractions)