How to Kill Your Neighbor’s Dog

No dogs were harmed in the making of this movie. In fact, Kenneth Branagh didn’t actually kill the dog. It’s all about the angst of a playwright who has been unable to duplicate his early successes. It never really amounts to anything, except for a while when he is learning to know and like his young neighbor (Suzi Hofrichter, who was 11 years old then). The girl is very good, and an amazing example of how a little girl who looks not really pretty at 11 can turn into a real looker by the time she’s 21, if you look at early and later pictures of her at the IMDb. I wanted to like this more, but the Branagh character was a real pain in the ass.