I wasn’t a particularly big fan of Milo Ventimiglia as Denny. Gary Cole plays Don Kitch, Denny’s race coach, and, while the role he has is small, he is excellent in every scene he’s in. The 1.85:1 cinematography is stunning throughout the entire film, but is at its most compelling when someone drives a car on the race track. It’s a rush of adrenaline that you can only feel in the theater, with a crowd of people. Visually, it’s something else, especially when the rain starts pouring. I will say that the race sequences are incredibly exciting and beautifully shot by Ross Emery. Can’t it help that books that get adapted into film don’t ressemble one another ? Oh, this one has race cars in it? Damn. As soon as she takes pills for her headache, I was like “oh, here we go”, and I was right. I have an eye for the “predictable”, because I watch too many movies. Where’s Seyfried if the scene is set in the present? I’ll tell you where she is - dead. So predictable that I predicted Amanda Seyfried’s outcome during the film’s opening sequence, where DENNY (holy shit stop toying with my mind Tommy Wiseau, you’re tearing me apart!) sees Enzo, frail, on the floor, lying in his own urine. The story feels incredibly repetitive and old, however, The Art of Racing in the Rain has enough material to make it enjoyable.

The dog narrates the story and learns life lessons, as a “stupid dog”, through the humans.

It follows the exact same structure as two other “talking” dog movies that came out in 2019, A Dog’s Way Home and A Dog’s Journey. In terms of originality, this movie has none. In both movies, the dog is able to sniff out cancer and, in both movies, the dog dies at the end and we see the dog run in a valley of grass and emptiness, like in A Dog’s Journey when Bailey (Josh Gad) joins Dog Heaven with his BOI ETHAN (Dennis Quaid). Literally three months ago, Gail Mancuso made A Dog’s Journey, and The Art of Racing in the Rain is barely indistinguishable from ADJ. The film enters in “been-there-done-that” territory. Denny’s life changes when he meets Enzo and the love of his life, Eve (Amanda Seyfried), as they have a child and everything seems to be fine, or so that’s what Denny seems to think (Don’t worry about it, right?). Have you read and/or seen A Dog’s Purpose and A Dog’s Journey? You know, the one where a dog voiceov ers the stuff that happens in his multiple lives? Well, in The Art of Racing in the Rain, Enzo (Kevin Costner) narrates the story of his life as a dog (gee, where have I seen this before) and his human master, Denny (Oh hai Milo Ventimiglia), who is a racecar driver. Kevin Costner and Milo Ventimiglia in “The Art of Racing in the Rain” (2019, 20th Century Fox/Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)

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