Pick Of The Litter (2019) - Movie Review

  

Given my chosen line of work, the prospect of losing my vision is, to put it bluntly, fucking terrifying. Not trying to put shit on the visually impaired, but I personally see that eventuality for me personally to be a rather intimidating prospect. With that in mind, I find subjects like today’s film to be inherently interesting, giving a depiction of one of the many assistance strategies for that possibility. Knowing my recent track record concerning movies about animals, live-action or otherwise, I’ll admit that I wasn’t expecting too much out of this one. However, I am pleased to report that this doco is solid. A bit basic, but solid.

It’s an 80-minute film all about watching puppies grow up. For some, that on its own is more than enough to justify a film’s existence, and it’s honestly difficult to argue with that in this case. I mean, sure, it’s about as emotionally complex as A Dog’s Purpose, but there’s nothing here to gives the feeling that we’re being shown suffering for cheap engagement. There’s nothing even remotely melancholy to be found here, and even when the tears start to flow in regards to the varying successes of the dogs being trained, it’s all out of happiness.

Well, happiness and a certain quiet relief, and this is where the film goes in a surprisingly scary direction: The inner workings of guide dog training itself. Framed like a TLC-ready reality show, and shot and edited similarly to some of the documentary media that I myself have been involved in, it gives a nice rundown of the entire process from birth to being paired with a human. The training regime is shown as quite thorough and stringent, and considering they have a person’s life in their paws, it makes sense why that is. I mean, when part of the training involves dogs not obeying certain instructions to stop their human from walking into oncoming traffic, you’d want nothing short of the best of the best guiding you. That last bit is shown through a combination of standard handheld camera work and dash cams, resulting in some rather unnerving imagery.

It’s relatively lightweight, but it doesn’t really need to be anything more and that’s ultimately what I like most about this: It doesn’t try to be more than it is. Apart from being one of the better animal movies I’ve seen in months, it serves as a good depiction of a service that, if my initial fears come true, I myself might be in need of. And with the training methods shown here, I feel like I’d been in good paws if that were to happen.