Wiener-Dog

21 years after the world met Dawn Wiener, nerdy middle-schooler and unintentional '90s fashion icon, she's reintroduced in director Todd Solondz's new film, Wiener-Dog, a mostly unconnected pseudo-sequel to his career-launching comedy Welcome to the Dollhouse. Keeping with Solondz's trademark dark humor and controversial themes, Wiener-Dog is a collection of idiosyncratic character studies as seen through the eyes of a traveling dachshund. With the adorable pooch as our guide, we're exposed to several personalities in the form of her different owners, each with their own unique musings on human nature. Starting with a short stint as beloved best friend to a young cancer survivor, the pup is quickly and aptly named Wiener-Dog and witnesses the troubling and often crudely overbearing parenting by mother Dina, before showing up at Dawn's veterinary clinic and going on a road trip with her and an old friend, Brandon. Wiener-Dog is eventually taken under the wing of depressed, self-absorbed screenwriter Dave Schmerz before winding up with her final owners, a stuffy, lonely old woman and her greedy granddaughter.