Lasse Hallström is a patient, sympathetic director of actors, good at making ordinary attachments matter. We like his warmth, though the sentiment can become too insistent once he stops trusting the people on screen to move us.
Fi1m perspective
In Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009), Lasse Hallström lets Richard Gere grow attached to a dog and sees no need to hurry them. Parker's affection is taken seriously, without an elaborate plot to make the animal more interesting. We were moved by the pair because the time spent together makes their bond convincing. Hallström is a good director of this sort of modest drama, provided he resists the temptation to tell us how touching it all is.
His international breakthrough, My Life as a Dog (1985), came before the move into Hollywood features with Once Around (1991). What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) established his reputation for sensitive ensemble work, while The Cider House Rules (1999) and Chocolat (2000) continued his work with literary adaptations. Through that move, his interest remained in character and the things people have in common. His understated way of telling a story keeps attention on the actors rather than visual display.
Gere is well suited to this approach, giving Hachi a simple central performance that Hallström has the sense not to fuss over. The trouble is that the surrounding family receive so little of the same attention. They are thinly written and rarely seem to have enough to do. For a director whose strengths include ensemble work, that is a weakness worth taking seriously. We wanted more of the patience spent on the central pair to be extended to the other people.
The piano in Hachi is too insistent, and some of the repetition adds little to what we already understand. These are the habits that make Hallström's sentimentality frustrating: he can build a touching relationship, then keep asking us to notice it. His later Hollywood work has been criticised for settling into feel-good formulas, and here we can hear the problem as well as see it. There is still enough care in the central pairing to earn the tears. Try Hachi for Gere and the dog; neither needs quite so much help from the piano.
Biography
Lasse Hallström is a Swedish film director. He began his career directing music videos, notably for ABBA, and made his feature debut in Sweden in the 1970s. His international breakthrough came with the 1985 film My Life as a Dog, for which he received Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Hallström has since directed numerous English-language films, including What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), The Cider House Rules (1999), Chocolat (2000) and Hachi: A Dog's Tale (2009). The Cider House Rules earned him a further Academy Award nomination for Best Director. He has also directed Dear John (2010), Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2012) and A Dog's Purpose (2017).
