Dated shaggy dog story will leave you growling
Patrick (PG) Verdict: Doggedly unfunny rom-com ★✩✩✩✩ IN PATrICK, the pug easily gives the best performance — controlled, puckish, melting- eyed — while the humans end up chewing the scenery.
This hysterical outbreak of overacting is an attempt to make up for a leaden script, in which a BridgetJones-like singleton is landed with her dead grandmother’s spoiled and ageing pug, Patrick (pictured).
Sarah (Beattie edmondson) takes to dog-owning like a fish to a bicycle. She’s a ditsy english teacher, whose life is upended by a pooing, chewing canine.
But then Sarah realises richmond Park is filled with handsome men and their dogs — in this case a smug ed Skrein, and a charming Tom Bennett, the only actor who emerges from this film without embarrassment. There’s also a moment where podgy Patrick waddles off to chase deer, which looks like a rip-off of the infamous viral YouTube video of a runaway labrador (‘Fenton!’). Patrick is directed by Mandie Fletcher who made Absolutely Fabulous, but this time the writing is dated and dull. Jennifer Saunders is wasted as a school cookery teacher, as are cameos from Bernard Cribbins, roy hudd and Peter Davison. I laughed once, and that was at the dog.