
Starring: Naomi Watts, Bill Murray, Sarah Pidgeon, Constance Wu, Ann Dowd and Carla Gugino
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Runtime: 119 mins. Reviewed in Jul 2025
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan
This American drama tells the story of a lonely writer who bonds with a Great Dane dog which helps her cope with life, and come to terms with her troubled past.
Iris (Watts) is a writer and teacher whose life is thrown upside down when her closest friend and mentor, Walter (Murray), suddenly dies and leaves her his dog, Apollo. The dog is a huge Harlequin Great Dane, and both she and the dog are left grieving for the dog’s past owner.
Iris is fragile and she bonds with Apollo in ways that allow her to work through her grief for the loss of her mentor. In the course of her bonding, she has to cope with Apollo destroying her furniture and she receives threat and eviction notices as renter of a tiny Manhattan apartment in a building that has a strict ‘no dogs’ policy. Apollo constantly reminds Iris of the difficult choices Walter made in life, and she wants closure on those relevant to his tragic decision to suicide.
The plot reveals that a much-married Walter slept with young female students and he wrote erotic fiction. Iris struggles to understand why he behaved in these ways and ended his own life. Walter’s funeral was attended by all three of his past wives. One of Water’s widows insists he specifically wanted Iris to take his dog, and Apollo is present at Walter’s funeral.
The film is based on a national award-winning novel written in 2018 by Sigrid Nunez, which adroitly captures the theme of an insecure woman learning how to change her life by caring for a huge animal in New York. Comic moments are deftly created in the film by scenes of Iris walking Walter’s dog along the streets and in the parks of New York City.
Watts impressively takes the role of Iris, as she tries to piece together a better understanding of what Walter did and why, and she uses her insights to grow herself personally. The film’s characters are complex and eccentric. Good direction captures the selfishness of suicide, and the loneliness of stressful existence in busy times. With the help of a final imaginary, revelatory denouement between Walter and Iris, the film joins together the vulnerability of life with the rawness of emotions that can characterise it. The canine performance of Apollo is impressive; Apollo is a well-trained animal. The film’s scripting is sharp and insightful, and the relationship between Iris and Apollo is poignant and meaningful. The film is a finely nuanced depiction of grief that follows suicide.
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