Why is darling companion rated pg13

Dianne Wiest Penny as Penny. Richard Jenkins Russell as Russell. Elisabeth Moss Grace as Grace. Mark Duplass Bryan as Bryan. Ayelet Zurer Carmen as Carmen. Lindsay Sloane Ellie as Ellie. Jay Ali Sam as Sam. Robert Bear Possum as Possum. Casey Freeway as Freeway. Paul Kiernan Patient as Patient. Jericho Watson Ethan as Ethan. Yolanda Wood Cop as Cop. Walker Burly Cop as Burly Cop. Dina Goldman Caterer as Caterer.

Ruben Barboza Waiter as Waiter. Lawrence Kasdan. More like this. Watch options. Storyline Edit. Mother and daughter, Beth and Grace, find a bedraggled dog on the side of the freeway. Taking it home and rescuing it, the dog helps Grace meet a man. But Beth's husband, Joseph, hates the dog and just might cause even more friction in their marriage. While at their remote cabin for a weekend wedding with family, Joseph loses the dog and Beth isn't going home until they find it.

With help from their nephew, Joseph's sister, her new boyfriend, and their psychic gypsy maid, the family search high and low for the missing dog and in the process find that they also need to mend their own relationships.

Rated PG for some sexual content including references, and language. While everyone's entitled to the freedom of naming their pets whatever they want to, the name "Freeway" brings to mind cold asphalt and busy traffic.

There's nothing warm and endearing about the name, and after hearing the cast shout the name for the hundredth time, you're liable to find your care for the dog's rediscovery waning. The only upside to the dog having such a terrible name is it helps the viewer focus more on what the main point of the movie really is - the human conflict and resolution. My last complaint about the film is a minor one. There's a scene where Bryan and Russell go to see a man named Christus who's a hermit in the middle of the woods.

Considering how most of the rest of the film is grounded in a sense of reality maybe save for Carmen's Gypsy talk , Christus's appearance and exaggeratedly deep voice feels lifted out of an Adam Sandler film rather than a more serious drama. The scene was helpful for Bryan and Russell's relationship, but Christus seemed sorely misplaced otherwise. The content of Darling Companion was just a little surprising to me. However, the profanity in the film includes just about every word that can be accepted for a PG movie with the exception of the "F" word there didn't seem to be a single one here.

As such, there are over twenty uses of the "S" word and an array of other words, including a considerable amount of blasphemy. The intended audience for this film is mostly for people in their sixties, much like the main characters, but anyone who can relate to being a passionate pet owner, and has had similar family dynamics as these people do, can also relate to them.

In the end, Kasdan embraces the fact that the audience will be more mature, but he clearly is a little more sensitive to not going overboard with the content in order to still attract his intended viewers i. All in all, Darling Companion is a relatively heartwarming family drama that probably isn't nearly as effective as similar remote family vacation films Dan In Real Life comes to mind , but fans of any of the cast, and especially viewers in this age group, will probably get the most out of Kasdan's return to the director's chair.

The content still seems unnecessarily rough, especially when it comes to profanity, which especially makes it tough to recommend, but overall there are just enough problems with the film itself to keep it from being a classic worth revisiting over and over. We only had the DVD for review, but the film looked pretty decent in standard definition.

There were a few scenes where the film probably could have benefitted from high definition viewing especially with it taking place in the woods with lots of great nature footage , but the quality of the DVD is pretty good.

In addition to the theatrical trailer, we have the following extras on the DVD Darling Companion: Behind The Scenes - This is a brief overview of the story and the central cast reflecting on why they chose this story and what it was like to work together. I also didn't know he wrote the screenplays for Raiders of the Lost Ark and both Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi Here they talk about Kasdan, his legacy as a filmmaker and writer and how this story is easily relatable.

Finding Freeway: Dog People - Here we find that the writers of the film, Lawrence and Meg Kasdan, had really found a dog on the side of the road and later lost him in the woods for three weeks before he was found again, similarly to what happens in the film. It's a short featurette, but it's neat to learn a little about the dogs used in the filming of the movie as well as the writers' own experiences.

Darling Companion - for some sexual content including references, and language. The dog's name is Freeway. That part I will never forget. I will remember it echoing forlornly on mountain trails and forest thickets, on the banks of streams, on basketball courts, behind gas stations and along highways.

Where are you, boy? It is depressing to reflect on the wealth of talent that conspired to make this inert and listless movie. How could it fail to be good? Lacking that, how could be fail to be fair? How could it be so appallingly pointless? How could it be such thin soup? As the film opens, we meet Joseph Winter Kline , a back surgeon, his lonely wife, Beth Keaton , and their husband-seeking daughter, Grace Elisabeth Moss. Beth and Grace are driving down a Colorado freeway when Beth freaks out, makes Grace pull over, and runs back to where she saw a beautiful dog abandoned on the roadside.

Although claiming not to be dog people, they take this dog to a handsome young veterinarian Jay Ali. There is barely enough time for the Winters family to adopt the dog and name it Freeway before the daughter and the vet are getting married.

Here they're joined by Penny's son, Bryan Mark Duplass , and the cabin's housekeeper, Carmen Ayelet Zurer , who claims to be a gypsy soothsayer. Understand, please, that this is not a comedy. If it were, it has the makings of an outstandingly simple-minded one — but no, it tilts more toward a scrutiny of the relationships involved. These are put to a severe test when Dr. Winter takes Freeway for a walk, a deer runs across their path, and Freeway bolts off in joyous pursuit.

And that's the last we'll see of Freeway until a shot right at the end, which surely found its inspiration in "Lassie Come Home. All the rest of the movie involves a search for the missing dog.