Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight (2025)
Directed by: Embeth Davidtz
Premise: Based on the memoir by Alexandra Fuller. In 1980 Zimbabwe Rhodesia, a family of white British farmers await the outcome of the election following the end of that country’s civil war.
What Works: A lot of historical filmmaking tends to take place in the upper echelons of society where powerful people make decisions that determine the course of history. Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is historical filmmaking from the opposite end. The picture is about the Fullers, a British family living on a farm in colonial Africa, and how the end of colonialism threatened their way of life. This is an impressively produced film. It’s very non-Hollywood. The look and design of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight are very much of its era and the picture has a grimy and organic feel. That’s best seen in the lead performance by seven year old Lexi Venter as Bobo, the youngest daughter of the Fuller family. Hollywood movies tend to romanticize youth and children are often precociously smart and witty. That’s not the case for Bobo who is a difficult and unruly kid. Bobo is dirty and obnoxious and her teeth are coming in inconsistently. Those imperfections give the young character a raw reality that characterizes the whole movie. The film’s other performances are also impressive, especially Embeth Davidtz as Nicola, the mother of the Fuller family. The story is really about her. Nicola’s desperation to hold onto the farm is really about her grief over her deceased children. Her family is now literally part of the land. In that respect, Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight offers a different look at colonialism. This film is not an apology for colonialism and the filmmakers pick up on the character’s casual racism. But the film does suggest complicated questions about identity and land rights.
What Doesn’t: In adapting Alexandra Fuller’s memoir, the filmmakers take liberties with the source material. The book is further reaching, addressing a longer period of time and the Fuller’s experiences in various African countries. The film adaptation of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight focuses on a specific section of the family’s story and compresses some of the events. That’s standard practice for a dramatization of a memoir but the film loses some of the context. Viewers who are not familiar with the history of European colonialism in Africa and specifically in Zimbabwe might struggle to grasp the larger significance of the events on screen. The film also introduces a subplot about a creepy uncle that doesn’t really get resolved.
Bottom Line: Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight is an exceptional historical drama. It’s smart, well acted, and well produced. The picture recaptures a historical moment from a specific point of view in a way that suggests larger and challenging questions about identity, home, and power.
Episode: #1058 (July 27, 2025)