At his best, White's writing straddles the line between the comedy and the cruelty of emotional pain and wanders the gray area between comic mania and dangerous obsession. At his worst, however, he makes sport of his shallow characters and oblivious caricatures with a sour humor, and his supporting players are too often glib targets for White. The curious character study is a comedy in a minor key, but for all White's fascination with Peggy, he brings little conviction to the healing message under all this creepiness and social awkwardness, beyond what Shannon brings to the role.

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White seems unsure of whether it's a farce or a character study or a sitcom, and he isn't accomplished enough to combine the three. But he is perceptive and gentle enough a director to allow Peggy to become a dog person of tragic proportions without laughing at her. He's a humorist with a humane core. His biggest asset is Shannon, a former "Saturday Night Live" star (...). Shannon has a long, sharp nose, beady eyes that narrow with ease, and a wonderfully mercurial face that goes from elated to wounded to bereft to expectant to disappointed in a single take. She gives the movie its inner life. Maybe the movie will give her back her comedy career.

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Most of the laughs in YEAR OF THE DOG are those nervous laughs where the audience isn't entirely sure whether they should find the situation funny or unbearably sad. (...) YEAR OF THE DOG would have benefited from a stronger hand behind the camera (White's general aesthetic basically involves cribbing heavily from Wes Anderson and Jared Hess), but as a showcase for Shannon, it ends up being strangely moving.

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Needy human animals staining against the leash of emotional expectations make Mike White's low-key YEAR OF THE DOG more situation tragedy than situation comedy. But Molly Shannon's bittersweet portrayal of its lonely canine-loving heroine, along with a passel of pups trying to steal the picture, make for a satisfying and funny, if ironic, comedy intended for lovers of both the beast and/or sophiticated laughs. (...) White is not a conventionally comic writer, and YEAR OF THE DOG is not a conventional comedy; both are fatalistically funny and resigned to the concept  of unhappiness but generous enough to accept whatever a character may need to do to avoid it.

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This touching story centers on a lonely, single woman who loses the love of her life, her dog Pencil, and struggles to overcome a life without her cherished "significant other." In a more mainstream movie, this character would be reduced to a sideshow, laughed at as a pathetic nutcase, or a goofy pet lover. In certain genres, she might be regarded as a threat. (...) Starring Molly Shannon as the distraught pet-owner, YEAR OF THE DOG ambles with both light humor and dark insights. Filmmaker Mike White's easy comic touch graces the storyline, unleashing some amusing comic characters, as well. Regina King is a frothy delight as Peggy's marriage-minded colleague, while Laura Dern is hilarious as a high-strung, overly-protective mother. John C. Reilly is sympathetic as Peggy's macho neighbor who tries to understand her depth of loss, while enduring nightlong barkings of her new-found strays.

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