As documentary pitches go, a study of service dogs and their humans is as critic-proof, in its own way, as a Marvel spectacular: It will have a particular audience at “hello” (or perhaps that should be “heel”) regardless of execution. Which is to say that veteran Dutch docmaker Heddy Honigmann’s “Buddy” doesn’t need to be as delicate and intelligent as it is to work, but its thoughtful, unsentimental gaze makes an already guaranteed awww-fest into something more substantially affecting. Examining a diverse half-dozen of dog-person pairs at close but not overly invasive quarters, the film captures the remarkable breadth and depth of assistance these canine aides offer their variously disabled, trauma-afflicted or special-needs owners. An unsurprising hit with audiences on the docfest circuit, “Buddy” is bound for a long life in ancillary.
A humane, straightforward stylist who began in narrative cinema before making a non-fiction name for herself in the 1990s,...
A humane, straightforward stylist who began in narrative cinema before making a non-fiction name for herself in the 1990s,...
- 5/3/2019
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
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