We argue that "My Life as a Dog" gets sold as the gentlest movie ever made when it's actually a devastating study of a kid coping with his mother's death by barking like a Soviet space dog no one bothered to bring home — and the trick is that it hides the wreckage in something that looks, on the surface, like whimsy.
EPISODE SUMMARY
We celebrate Virgo season with Robby's favorite film — My Life as a Dog (1985), directed by Lasse Hallström and adapted from Reidar Jönsson's novel, on The Arc (thearc.fm). With cinematography by Jörgen Persson and a breakout performance by Anton Glanzelius, the film became an international success, winning the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and earning Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. Our discussion frames it as a memory movie — a story told through a child's perception, where bright colors and circus-like design choices mirror the distortions of memory, and where devastating material is cloaked in humor.
WHERE TO WATCH
Streaming availability as of 2026-07-06.
- HBO Max (streaming with subscription)
- Criterion Channel (streaming with subscription)
- Amazon Prime Video (rent or buy)
- Apple TV (rent or buy)
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A Long Summary
My Life as a Dog is Lasse Hallström's 1985 Swedish film about Ingemar, a boy of nine or ten whose mother is dying and who gets sent off to live with relatives in a village full of odd, loving people — a glass factory, an artist nobody likes but everybody loves, a man on the roof who won't stop hammering. It became a genuine phenomenon in America, playing to sold-out New York theaters for the better part of a year, which is not a thing subtitled films do. Kurt Vonnegut called it the best movie ever made. It is, depending on which of us you ask, the gentlest movie of all time or a film that opens with a child throwing milk in his own face and only gets sadder from there.
This one started as a birthday present: Robby brought his favorite film — the one he first saw at sixteen and has been quietly measuring his own creative life against ever since — to the two of us. What follows is less a review than three people arguing about whether a kid who keeps whispering "it could be worse" is admirably self-aware or terrifyingly so. Jaclynn came for the metaphors and stayed for the childhood trauma and suffering dogs, both of which are, in ranked order, her two least favorite things to encounter on a Saturday. Cole confessed this is the exact film he wishes he could make, then coined the phrase "we're not making My Life as a Dog here, guys" for every future set where the diminishing returns have kicked in. Robby, meanwhile, spent the back half of the episode trying to physically disappear into his own chair while the two of us read his artistic résumé into the microphone against his will.
Somewhere in here we cover Laika the space dog, the fact that Sean Avery out-acts Matt Damon in Oppenheimer, a spelling bee, and the time Jaclynn told a stranger concerned for her physical safety that she was in an abusive relationship with rowing — which turns out to be the whole thesis of the film, arriving sideways. The movie's about a boy who can't stop barking when things get bad. The episode is about three people who can't stop making the joke, walking upstairs to not make it, and loving each other anyway. You don't need to have seen it. Five minutes in, you'll want to.
WHAT WE DISCUSS
00:00 — Cold Open
The hosts open by joking about Virgo season and the coincidence that they're recording during the exact peak of a Virgo full moon, then mention that this episode features two movies that Robby and another host each picked for their birthdays.
00:28 — Why We Chose To Discuss My Life As A Dog
One host explains that they picked "My Life as a Dog" as their favorite film after first seeing it at 16 in a packed Detroit theater with family and a friend, then they discuss how the movie handles heavy themes like death lightly, and they bring in an old clip of the director noting that American audiences often resist subtitles before we try to figure out how they'd briefly describe the film to someone who's never seen it.
02:09 — What You Need To Know Before Watching
Two hosts trade warnings and context for first-time viewers of "My Life as a Dog" — noting its child's-eye, memory-play style and the real-life Laika story it references — then disagree over whether the boy narrator is naively unaware of his trauma or hyper-aware and coping by constantly telling himself "it could be worse," with one host connecting this to her own childhood stutter and trauma responses, before a tangent about a friend's badly timed joke about an abusive relationship with rowing.
13:46 — Did We (Jaclynn) Like It?
Jaclynn explains that although the film's heavy themes of childhood trauma and a suffering dog made her sad rather than enthralled, she recognizes and respects the heavy use of metaphor and Robby's love for it, while Cole admits the movie resembles a slice-of-life short film he and Jaclynn once made together that flopped despite months of effort and a cameo from an actual NHL player.
17:27 — Sketch: Shout Out To An Ex!
In this scripted bit, a host delivers a mock Chipotle ad aimed at someone breaking up with a partner in the restaurant, then we drop the sketch to chat about former hockey player Sean Avery's surprisingly memorable small role in "Oppenheimer," joking that he outacted Matt Damon.
19:42 — Why Robby Loves My Life As A Dog
One host explains why the film resonates with him by connecting it to his own anxiety and to memories of his melancholy Polish grandmother who survived the Holocaust, praising how the movie blends grief and humor and singles out the ending scene of the community listening to a boxing match as deeply moving, while the other host, who didn't like the film personally, agrees it's skillfully made and admits their reactions haven't fully been discussed yet.
23:35 — Cole's Reaction & Comparing It To My Dinner With Andre
One host explains that the film reminds him of "My Dinner with Andre" as shorthand on film sets for prioritizing artistic quality over rushing to finish, and then the two hosts discuss specific small details from the movie — like the toaster gift and the gradually built summer house — that they think demonstrate its subtle, patient storytelling, before one host teasingly interrupts the other mid-thought, prompting a joking exchange about him doing that on purpose to annoy his co-host.
27:25 — No One Says I Love You
The hosts note that the word "I love you" is never spoken in the film, pointing instead to the hug between Saga and Ingemar before his first departure as the closest the movie gets to expressing affection, and agree that this absence stands out given how close-knit the community is.
28:02 — Sketch: Cathartic Company Holiday Party
The hosts stumble over pronouncing "Antarctic" and joke about spelling and missing letters, then play a sketch where an office holiday party host awkwardly introduces new employees on stage and asks them to share a fun fact, starting with a man named Chris who mentions once being in a spelling bee.
29:50 — Sexual Content Warning & Discussion
The hosts admit they were surprised and uncomfortable by how much sexual content and nudity appears in the film given its young characters, debating whether that reflects real childhood experiences with sexuality or just reflects a more permissive earlier era, while one host also questions why the film's nudity double standard between men's and women's bodies feels so arbitrary.
31:30 — The Film's Many Metaphors
The hosts (including Robby) work through the film's central metaphors—the dog shot into space without supplies, the kennel scene, and the dog's escalating barking—as symbols for the boy's abandonment, one host jokes that a subplot about two women fighting over the boy reveals a male screenwriter's fantasy, they digress into a host's love of quoting Faulkner's "My mother is a fish" and a retail job story about writing obscure chalkboard signs, note that Kurt Vonnegut called the movie his favorite, and close by recalling a past story one of them told about a friend's frightening childbirth experience.
36:19 — Our Favorite Robby Story
The hosts recall Robby telling a story about a flight with his child that ended with an audience needing to know "if he lives," then spend an extended, teasing bit publicly praising Robby as an exceptional storytelling teacher and respected figure in New York theater while he squirms, blushes, and physically tries to shut down the conversation by covering his microphone.
39:26 — Favorite Lines
The hosts trade favorite lines and moments from the film, highlighting Ingemar's "who's going to load the bananas" quip, the recurring "it could be worse" gag, the joke about the boxer nicknaming the kids Floyd and Ingemar, and the radio-announcer scene revealing Johansson's win, before drifting into a tangent about one host's birthday and being mistaken for taller than she is.
CREATIVES
- Lasse Hallström — Director
- Lasse Hallström, Reidar Jönsson, Brasse Brännström, Per Berglund — Writers — adapted from Jönsson's novel
- Jörgen Persson — Cinematographer
CAST
- Anton Glanzelius — Ingemar
- Tomas von Brömssen — Gunnar
- Anki Lidén — Ingemar's mother
- Melinda Kinnaman — Saga
AWARDS
- Golden Globe — Best Foreign Language Film (1988) — WIN
- Academy Award — Best Director (Lasse Hallström) — NOMINATION
- Academy Award — Best Adapted Screenplay — NOMINATION
- Guldbagge Award — Best Film — WIN
SOURCE MATERIAL
My Life as a Dog is based on the second novel of a semi-autobiographical trilogy by Reidar Jönsson, which drew on the author's own childhood, growing up with a mother who suffered from tuberculosis and terrible fits of violence.
Bookshop.org search link: here
FUN FACTS / PRODUCTION TRIVIA
Michael Jackson loved this movie, made contact with its child star Anton Glanzelius, took him to an amusement park in Sweden to get to know him, and Glanzelius also got to visit Michael in America. [Source]
After another appearance in Husbonden (1989), Anton Glanzelius did not want to continue his acting career, trying to become a professional footballer, but had to stop at the age of 20 due to knee injuries, and later became a TV producer. [Source]
SF Studios producer Waldemar Bergendahl heard about the book and immediately thought of Lasse Hallström, who had already made a number of films at SF Studios, and after Hallström responded positively, the final screenplay was written by Hallström together with the author Reidar Jönsson, Lars "Brasse" Brännström and Pelle Berglund. [Source]
My Life as a Dog is based on Reidar Jönsson's novel of the same name but differs quite substantially from the book. [Source]
After a delayed start, they finally got a green light to start production. [Source]
WHAT THEY DID NEXT
Since My Life as a Dog, Lasse Hallström has kept working steadily. He directed the studio fantasy adaptation The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, sharing directing credit with Joe Johnston. He followed that with the biopic Hilma, bringing to life Swedish abstract painter Hilma af Klint, starring his daughter Tora Hallström as the young Hilma and his wife Lena Olin as the older Hilma. Reviewers noted the film's sensual, whimsical style, comfortable as a silk robe. More recently, he directed the Nordic Noir series The Darkness, a 2024 American-Icelandic thriller series starring his wife Lena Olin, and moved on to the 2025 feature The Map That Leads to You.
Reidar Jönsson's output since the film has been much quieter on screen — his post-1985 screen credit search turns up only the 2008 Sami historical drama The Kautokeino Rebellion as a screenwriter, alongside continued work as a novelist.
Dive Deeper into My Life As A Dog
If you want to go deeper on My Life as a Dog after this episode, a few things are worth tracking down.
The Criterion Collection's essay by film critic Michael Atkinson, published alongside the disc's release, makes the case that the film remains one of the greatest of all films about children, even as Lasse Hallström's later Hollywood work has overshadowed it in the popular memory. Atkinson also digs into the darker undercurrents we wrestle with, noting how at home, Ingemar is an accident that never stops happening, and his miserable mother does little but scream, groan, and disappear into books, so overwhelmed by her disease that she has lost the capacity to sacrifice her feelings for her child's sake.
Turner Classic Movies' article on the film is another good companion piece, drawing out how much of the story came from Hallström's own life — the director has said "I related to it much more than I realized as I was making the film... My mom was a writer and needed a lot of that privacy and I do recall that feeling of that closed door... I can relate to being shut out like that."
And for anyone who wants the full critical picture, Criterion's original DVD/Blu-ray package includes a booklet essay by Atkinson paired with a separate personal appreciation of the film written by novelist Kurt Vonnegut — a rare combination of a critic's analysis and a major literary voice's tribute to the same movie. Worth seeking out if you can find a copy of the physical release.
RELATED ARC EPISODES
New to The Arc? Start with Episode 02: The Fantastic Four if you like Marvel movies — and want to hate us forever and tell your friends how lame we are.
SOUND DESIGN ATTRIBUTION
Sound design via Freesound.org and Envato.
