Every now and then, a film walks in, quietly sits next to you, and by the time you realize what it’s doing, your soul is in a chokehold. DogMan is that film. I watched it recently — and wow, this wasn’t just “a movie with dogs.” This was bruised poetry about love and hate, scribbled by a wounded soul. This was Shakespeare with bite marks. This was something raw, aching, and entirely new.

Let’s start with the man at the center of it all — Caleb Landry Jones, whose performance is so quietly devastating and oddly magnetic, I’m still trying to process whether I wanted to give him a hug or ask him to teach me how to train a pug to pirouette. His character — gentle, bookish, broken — is one of those rare cinematic souls that makes you feel like you haven’t been reading enough.

He’s calm. He’s well-mannered. He quotes literature. And oh yeah, he’s also running a sanctuary for dogs while occasionally dressing in drag, navigating police raids, and somehow remaining one of the kindest people on screen in a film full of human monsters.

Because DogMan isn’t really about dogs. It’s about people. And how awful they can be.

This is a movie where cruelty doesn’t just come from street gangs or corrupt cops — it comes from the people who should love you the most. Parents. Teachers. Neighbors. Bureaucracy. DogMan is an X-ray of trauma — not in the loud, Oscar-bait kind of way, but in soft monologues, in scars you almost miss, in a man who still cooks by his mother’s recipes because loving her is easier than judging her.

There’s something both beautiful and brutal in how the film portrays that bond. His mother may have fled, but in his mind, she still lives — in mashed potatoes, in bedtime stories, in dreams too gentle for the world he’s trapped in.

And what a world. In this one, institutions fail you, friends betray you, jobs close without warning, and love? Love is something you teach a dog with kindness and repetition. Which is maybe why the dogs in this film are better actors than half of Hollywood. No offense, but if there were an Oscar for “Best Supporting Canine Ensemble,” this cast would bury the competition — probably in the backyard, next to their chew toys.

What struck me most was how DogMan never asks for your pity. It doesn’t frame its hero as a victim or a martyr. It simply presents him — flawed, fabulous, fiercely loyal. He’s not trying to be liked. He’s trying to survive. And along the way, he becomes one of the most compelling, heartbreaking characters I’ve seen in years.

I watched this in one breath. Not just because it was unpredictable — though it absolutely was — but because I believed it. Even the weirder turns, the flaws, the fantasy sequences… they felt earned. I wasn’t judging the film. I was just with it.

So yes, watch DogMan. It’s not perfect. Neither is its hero. But if you’ve ever felt like the world doesn’t know what to do with someone like you — you’ll get it.