A Dog Year

To play Jon Katz, Jeff Bridges dressed like him. The crew took away two bags of the writer's clothes, ordered exact copies and sanded them down so they'd look just as worn. 'A Dog Year' is based on the memoir Katz published in 2002, and it's George LaVoo's debut as a director after co-writing 'Real Women Have Curves'.

Katz is a blocked writer in the middle of a midlife crisis. His wife has moved out (we only hear her on the phone, voiced by Karen Allen), his daughter Emma (Lauren Ambrose) has a place of her own, and he's left with two placid Labradors and a blank screen. Then a breeder who's read his books talks him into adopting Devon, an abused, hyperactive border collie who bolts the moment he's off the plane.

Devon wrecks the house, fights with the other dogs and chases anything on wheels. At his wits' end, Katz takes him to a farm in upstate New York, where a no-nonsense trainer, Lois (Lois Smith), and a neighbour, Anthony (Domhnall Gleeson), help him with the dog and, while they're at it, with his own life.

It was partly shot on Katz's own farm in Hebron, with a border collie called Ryder playing Devon. It was meant for cinemas through Picturehouse, but when the distributor shut down in 2008 it went to HBO instead, which premiered it in the US on 3 September 2009. It's now on HBO Max in the UK. Bridges got an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie, though the award went to Al Pacino for 'You Don't Know Jack'.

Reviews were lukewarm: Slant saw it as a small film that wins you over with its modesty, while Variety reckoned the dog gave the better performance. Katz himself wrote before it aired that he'd been told the Jon Katz on screen bore little resemblance to the real one.

• Comedy
• Drama
• Dogs