‘The Art of Racing in The Rain’ or — Look Who’s Torquing?
How do you describe a film like ‘The Art of Racing in The Rain’ (2019) other than calling it stupid and awful? Idiotic and bizarre? No, stupid and awful is more accurate because that’s what this film is.
What’s deeply frustrating about ‘The Art of Racing in The Rain’ is that for the first thirty minutes it perversely works as a mind-boggling car-crash as, despite its title, this is a movie gracelessly plowing headlong into a wall at 90 miles an hour. The concept is staggering: it is about the life of a racing car driver and his family but told from the point of view of their dog, Enzo, who narrates the film with the voice of Kevin Costner. Enzo is wise, Enzo has a connection with (and UNDERSTANDS!) Formula 1 racing, Enzo is not afraid to die because Enzo knows that Enzo will be reincarnated in the body of a human and will become a racing car driver himself. Enzo is sometimes angry at God for making him a dog. Enzo might be insane.
This leads to some inadvertently hilarious narration as Enzo waxes philosophical about life and racing, both of which he mangles together like two colliding Ferraris resulting in statements that make NO fucking sense whatsoever. This movie made me laugh… a lot.
Unfortunately the novelty wears off and when it does what you’re left with is a banal, insipid, predictable, badly made soap-opera. Not only that but the focus shifts from racing (there’s hardly any racing in this film and almost none in the rain) to brain cancer, brain cancer that Enzo could have detected and cured if God hadn’t made him a dog, something that leads to more theological canine jeremiads and audience bafflement.
Like most American aspirational shit the concept of death is fetishised but also denied. No one is ever really gone, death is never the end, dogs can see souls leaving the body (apparently) and reincarnation exists. This means that — spoilers — Enzo DOES come back from the dead in the end as a human who can drive cars!!!!!!!
‘The Art of Racing in The Rain’ is terrible, ill-conceived and should have been put down as soon as someone suggested making it into a film. Yes, there are laughs to be had with the dog voice-over and Enzo’s fantasy of frolicking in a summer field in Mongolia has to be seen to be believed but there is too much boring dreck to sit through for such inadvertent thrills. Oh, and if you’re a fan of Senna then this could offend you as the movie offers a pretty tasteless reason for why he died.
If you see this one coming at you down the road then avoid, although it’s so badly made it’ll more than likely end up accidentally crashing straight into you… possibly because there’s a fucking dog behind the wheel.
