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My Dog Tulip Movie Review

My Dog Tulip is a 2009 independent animated film directed by Paul Fierlinger and starring Christopher Plummer. This is a simple, but very charming flick.

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“Dogs read the world through their noses

and write their history in urine“

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Based on the 1956 memoir of the same name by novelist and memoirist J. R. Ackerley, this is the story of a man who rescues a German Shepherd and how the two become fast friends. Ackerley never had a relationship and he was actually a gay man upon further research, so that may have been one of the reasons why he never found a significant other, but the film unfortunately never commented on that, instead treating his life with just a dog as something entirely normal. That was certainly a missed opportunity.

With that being said, this is a lovely animated tale for adults and certainly not for kids. Christopher Plummer narrates this story and he did such a beautiful job with it. It is rare for a movie that features narration from start to finish to not frustrate me eventually, but this is one of those rare success stories in that department as his narration is tender and amusing in equal measure.

My Dog Tulip certainly isn’t for everyone as the movie doesn’t just focus on just your standard actions such as walking and playing that characterize human-dog companionships, but it also delves deeply into the more unpleasant and gross parts of life with a dog – defecation, urination and fornication.

While I get that this type of approach may constitute for too much information issue for some, but as somebody who has dogs myself I found it to be refreshingly honest in those depictions. These moments are also layered with a delightfully wry sense of humor from our narrator with my personal highlight being his explanation of the distinction between dogs’ regular peeing and peeing for territorial marking purposes. That bit was both truthful and so hilarious.

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The movie is also quite wonderfully animated. It has that type of indie look to it that I really appreciate – a rough, unfinished pencil sketch aesthetic and a lovely sense of realism. It’s such a pretty film that is also very well scored. It’s quite well edited and paced too. It develops both of its characters quite well, though I still would have liked to have seen more from the human side of the equation and not just the canine one.