“So we are PeeFFS,” a canine, dizzy from the adrenaline of a rollicking night out on the streets, says to his compatriots in a scene from Strays. It’s a scene that epitomises, why parody as syntax can be applied to both humans and dogs. We might not look, act or speak the same, but we tend to behaviourally mirror each other. Not for nothing are animals a reference point for unmoderated humanity. Led by Will Ferrell and Jamie Foxx, voicing a couple of rabid, but adorable dogs, Strays is a delightfully foul-mouthed comedy about a pet’s revenge on his contemptible owner. It’s unhinged, raw, crass, cute and doesn’t hold back in what is a welcome, adulterated view of a space now at the mercy of cutesy Instagram reels.
Will Ferrell voices Reggie, a dim-witted pet dog who believes his owner’s abusive behaviour is actually a form of tedious self-expression. Reggie is a hopeless romantic, in love with the idea of servitude. To the point that he interprets violent rejection as a sort of invitation to introspect. To a self-involved, unmotivated owner he represents that stalky, under-confident presence who has never really known the value of agency. Agency, that the film argues, you can only really only have in the borderless world of strays. There is possibly a great analogy here for toxic, co-dependent relationships. That however would be of focus, if Strays wasn’t as relentlessly snappy, sharp and indelicate.
After he is abandoned, Reggie meets a group of strays, led by the somewhat bitter but razor-tongued Bug (Jamie Foxx). Bug guides a small group, that also features the delightful candour of Randall Parks as this oversized lump who acts nothing like the way he looks. Reggie’s admiration for the owner-pet bond finds its kryptonite in Bug’s scathing disapproval of the idea. From the poop they pick to the neutering they commission, Bug suspects everything as a nefarious manipulation; the humans are pests, up to something sinister. Reggie’s induction into the group apes a coming-of-age story, propelled by this sudden desire exact revenge on his absent owner by doing something so corny yet cathartic, it belongs precisely to this twisted world.
Directed by Josh Greenbaum, the film adds to the ‘what if pets could talk’ genre that has only really extended our control over the narrative. Strays sort of challenges it. This is after all the story of a domiciled pet finding his feet on the other side of the fence. There may be no guarantees of food and provisions on this side, but at least there is a clearer view of the horizon, without the shadow of obligation hanging over. This isn’t exactly National Geographic following animals into the relatively wilder territory of the streets, but more of a crafted response to the one-sided dynamic we often take for granted. With cats, promiscuously trading attention for meaning in pop culture (there was one in Argylle and about a hundred in The Marvels) a dialogue about just who is at the centre — humans or animals — at these obsessions is maybe taking shape.
What works for Strays, however, isn’t its clever positioning as this contemptuous takedown of the idea of domesticity, but that it is so deranged and unapologetic in its tone. This film belongs to the stoner comedy genre in a way that we have been starved of in the recent past. The fact that it has taken a bunch of dogs to bring back that pulpy, over-the-top grammar of adolescent comedies tells you all you need to know about a genre that simply doesn’t go for broke anymore. Ferrell and Foxx are comedy brands in themselves and though they only appear as voices here, the potty humour liberates them in ways that human embellishments never would. It’s sweet, frothy and satisfyingly filthy.
To a large chunk of films that feed on the softness of our underbelly, Strays offers the glowing dismissal of an emerging trend. What if animals could take offense? What if their response was significantly raunchier than the one we conceive out of self-fulfillment? Even though the causality might be scientifically flimsy, the razor-sharp wit with which it is employed makes for a delightful, light-hearted pirouette. The world has been deprived of good comedies and it has taken the union of a bunch of canines to import some zing and welcome fangs to a genre starved of bite. Strays is an innovative, edgy mix of parodic misadventures and a vocabulary so unabashed, it pulls you back from the cushion of online drunkenness. For the price of a pretty hilarious comedy, it’s also an effective sociological comment.
Strays is now streaming on Jio Cinema
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