Fluke

What charmed me most about the movie was the interaction of the dogs themselves. [02 Jun 1995, p.J]

As summer fare goes, Fluke is a shaggy surprise -- the most winning dog-meets-girl love story yet. [02 Jun 1995, p.4G]

Although Fluke‘s theme is a bit too mature for young children and too juvenile for many adults, most renters will get their Kleenex’s worth somewhere, whether in Fluke’s triumph over the insupportable horrors of animal testing or in the humans’ tidy tale of loves lost and won. Read full review

Not only does it steadfastly refuse to condescend to its young viewers (it may actually be too scary for very young children), Carlei carries us along with his strong story sense, and pulls an unusually satisfying plot twist in his final act that elevates the movie, and cleverly turns it into an unexpected moral lesson. [02 Jun 1995]

It takes some time, but ultimately “Fluke” turns into a charming, positive message story about love of life in whatever form it assumes. Read full review

Fluke tries hard to snuggle its way into the audience's heart but lacks the warmth and spirit to pull off the feat. [02 Jun 1995]

Less lighthearted than one would expect from a film that stars a dog, "Fluke" works on the "aw, how cute" level but fails when it waxes poetic about the way humans don't realize their failures until they experience the animal's point of view. [02 Jun 1995, p.31]

An astoundingly humorless, sentimental meditation on the magic wheel of life, this oddball endeavor - clearly invested with a lot of passion - is too dark for children and too dopey for adults. [02 Jun 1995, p.05]

A gloomy and overwrought fable, too heavy as family entertainment. [02 Jun 1995, p.26]

A movie as slight as Fluke shouldn't be expected to draw gasps and cooing at the drop of a plot twist. [02 Jun 1995, p.9]

Too disturbing for most children, too suggestive of cornball kiddie fare for most adults, this oddly affecting film is unlikely to capture the audience it deserves. Read full review

What Carlei captures perfectly, and what gives Fluke its affecting moments, is a sense of uncanny canniness that the “lower” animal world so often displays. That and a neat little plot twist (not to mention a touching rescue scene involving a chimpanzee and a terrier) make Fluke an interesting, offbeat family movie. Read full review

Though it is meant to be whimsical and touching, the film's style is leaden, and its story has more danger than excitement. Read full review

A morbid and sticky adaptation of James Herbert's best-selling novel, this curious meditation on death, dogs and the afterlife hardly lives up to its billing as family fare. Read full review

Maybe if "Fluke," which might have been better as an animated feature, weren't such a lavish, big-deal production and closer to the modest level of the recent -- and pleasant little -- pig movie "Gordy," it wouldn't seem so overwhelmingly, at times even laughably, foolish. [02 Jun 1995, p.F6]

For golden retriever lovers, "Fluke" is a must-see. For everyone else, wait for the video. Read full review

The plot twist is clever, but it's way too little, too late, and too implausible (whence comes this doggie amnesia?) to redeem this maudlin tale. Read full review

This doggy flick, starring Matthew Modine, Nancy Travis, Eric Stoltz and Max Pomeranc, is one of the weirdest, most depressing family films ever made. Read full review

Hollywood, never one to let a retro idea die, has entrusted the premise to Carlo Carlei, a young Italian filmmaker whose stylistical flourishes in 1992's Flight of the Innocent seem doubly grotesque when employed toward such flea-laden material. [02 Jun 1995, p.2D]