Lawn Dogs Reviews

[Highly rated reviewer]

Great story, superb acting, haunting visuals

This story of a friendship that crosses gender, age and social boundaries is captivating right fom the start. It certainly has been my discovery of the year. It's so good that when I first saw it on FilmFour I switched over immediately to watch it again on FilmFour+1.

Mischa Barton gives one of the best child performances ever and Sam Rockwell is also outstanding.

What makes this film so different, however, are the imaginative style and the multilayered characters, the haunting images that will stay with you for a long time and the superb ending.

Unfortunately there are no worthwhile extras on the DVD but hey, it's a great film...

My advice: Watch it and watch it again!

Sam Rockwell - rising star!

The always watchable Sam Rockwell gives another excellent performance in this quirky and often blackly comic drama. Rockwell plays Trent, the loner who mows the lawns in a sterile, wealthy community. He meets and befriends Devon, a ten year old resident, an impressive debut from Mischa Barton who holds her own amongst the adult stars.

The story centres around this odd couple, their burgeoning relationship set against a backdrop of prejudice and hypocrisy.

The affable Rockwell is one of the finest young actors working today, and continues to go from strength to strength. He was an inspired choice as lead, bringing a likeable yet edgy quality to the role, his next move always being difficult to predict. This plays well against Devon’s curious yet disaffected nature, and the chemistry between the stars is clear to see.

The small supporting cast is filled with the usual suburban stereotypes: the reactionary father, bored housewife mother, neighbourhood bully, and overbearing cop. However, these roles are well cast and well played, and the confident direction means that they never become tiresome.

The feel of the film is reminiscent of Tim Burton’s ‘Edward Scissorhands‘, although not quite as surreal, or David Lynch’s ‘Blue Velvet, although not quite as dark. This is a difficult genre to master and director John Duigan makes a noble effort. The film is littered with poignant moments, and the characters and relationships are written in a way that allows them to be contradictory and complex.

Sam Rockwell is great as the lawn man treated as scum by the rich but nasty inhabitants of the gated community. Mischa Barton also performs convincingly as the lonely little girl who doesn't understand the concept of 'the wrong side of the tracks' . Bitter sweet tale of the great American divide, where the privileged get all the breaks, deserving or not.

a stunning movie!

What can I say except you just have to watch this movie! it's basically the story of a relationship between a 10 yr old girl and a guy in his twenties, all totally innocent but that's not how the rest of the neighborhood sees it!

Mischa Barton is wonderful as the bored young girl fascinated by the guy who mows their lawn and lives in a trailer. I have never seen such a fantastic performance from a child actress before.. She is simply entrancing.

I won't spoil the ending here but just to say it's not what you might expect!

[Highly rated reviewer]

Lawn Dogs

I've had an ex-rental tape of this film sitting around waiting to be viewed for about a year. I'm not sure what stopped me watching it before but I really did miss out.

Lawn Dogs is a wonderful, sweet natured movie about the friendship between 10 year old Devon (Mischa Barton) and 22 year old Trent, who mows the lawns of the rich people in her neighbourhood. Of course their friendship is misread by the people around them and Trent becomes the object of suspicion.

To begin with Lawn Dogs seems a perfectly pleasent film, but nothing earth shattering but it sucks you in with a sensetive screenplay and well drawn characters that you come really to care for.

As Devon a young Mischa Barton is the anchor of the film and she's absolutely fantastic, showing an understanding of her character far beyond her tender years. There's challenging material for her too as the layers of her character slowly reveal themselves. In one fantastic scene she tells her parents that one of the young men in the neighbourhood (not Trent) put his hand up her shirt and it's fascinating watching their reaction play on her face as she decides to let them off the hook with 'he was tickling me' though this isn't true.

Sam Rockwell is also excellent as Trent. He's hardly squeaky clean (he's been to prison) but he's well meaning and relatively smart, smart enough to know how people will react to him and Devon being friends. The way Devon charms him works for the film because, first of all, it works for us but also because both treat it as an utterly innocent thing.

The scenes that Rockwell and Barton share are simply joyous, whether they are stealing chickens, dancing on the roof of Rockwell's truck or, in an enormously touching moment, showing each other their scars. That's my favourite moment of the film. Devon's scar is in the middle of her chest and when she starts to open her dress to show trent something Bartons delivery of 'It's not my chest I want to show you, stupid' when he turns away is just perfect.

The cast is uniformly fantastic with Kathleen Quinlan and the ever undervalued Christopher McDonald as Devon's parents and the brilliant Beth Grant cameoing as Trent's mum.

In fact I'm off to watch it again, just to make sure it's as good as I think it is.

Mown Down Gently

A lovely film, beautifully played and unlike many US indie films it has a real visual flair. Full of surprises and the whimsy is just about kept in check.

A Pleasant Find

I stumbled on this film one late night before going to bed, and I’m glad I did. It was the first time I was introduced to Sam Rockwell, I never knew who he was before this film, and he portrays a lonely gardener so brilliantly that you can’t help but fall in love with his character (especially when he skinny dips off the bridge).

The chemistry between Rockwell and Mischa Barton works so well, and you can't help but think that if she was older then you would not be wrong in thinking they would make a perfect couple.

This film has the odd bit of humour, twists and a half decent storyline and all set in you stereotypical American suburb, the film is topped of with a spooky, yet compelling narration at the end from Mischa Barton.

Just Great

It suprises me how many good films get shown on TV in the early hours. I saw part of this film once at about 2 in the morning on BBC2 when I was in high school but never found out what it was. A few years later and I saw it again, at about the same time, but managed to catch more of it this time and I loved it. I headed for Cefax to see what it was called and went after it. I've watched it many times since then and it's become one of my favourite films.

Mischa Barton Plays her character (Devon) extremely well considering her age (10 i think) and she can really make you feel for her. Her and Sam Rockwell go really well together and he really re-inforces her scenes (not that she needs it much).

This film will keep you intrested. It has it's funny moments, but it also has some really dark moments. Devon is a young girl with too much traumer built up so far in her life for someone her age, and with her parents being a little preocupied with wealth and popularity, she turns to trent (Rockwell). Of course, this leads to her parents making dangerous assumptions about the nature of Trent and Devon(Devon & Trent)'s relationship and you can see that the story will really turn sour when you hear Devon tell her parents;

'We were friends... Secret friends'. This then leads to a suprising twist ending that I wouldn't want to spoil for anyone who's yet to see it.

One of my favourite things in this film is the music. The main piece really strengthens some of the scenes, particularly the last scene... Epic is all I can think of to describe it.

I recommend this film to anyone. It is a great film and hasn't had nearly as much exposure as it should have.

Ace cast, ace story..shame about the ending

I was really really enjoying this film as I was watching it as it was very different and was playing around with some unusual ideas and subplots. However the last fifteen minutes ruined it for me. I wont tell you the ending obviously but it completely descends into cliches. Despite this I am glad i saw it and Sam Rockwell is outstanding in one of his best roles. Mischa Barton is also excellent, weird that she didnt make it in more movies and ended up in The O.C.

American dystopia

This is a lovely story of friendship and thoroughly creepy in its accuracy as a commentary on western life, its social hierarchys and upper class dysfunctionality. Ha - really its a ripping yarn with one of the most satisfying endings in film that I have seen.