The Dog Stars Plus, After 12 Years of Waiting

Ridley Scott’s new big-budget movie makes an immersive adaptation that honors the book while expanding its world

Ever since I read Peter Heller’s impressive novel, I’ve wanted to see this movie. It took 12 years to come out, and we enjoyed an afternoon show reclining in the sumptuous seats of the Garden Cinema today.

Ridley Scott’s new film adaptation of The Dog Stars surprised me in the best way. I went in wondering how he would handle a book that is so internal, so much about solitude and the quiet grind of staying alive after the world has emptied. What I didn’t expect was how much he would add. Entire sequences, whole pockets of story that weren’t in Peter Heller’s novel, appeared on screen. At first I braced myself, thinking this might be one of those director flourishes that pull you out of the story. But instead, the additions deepened the world. Scott’s addition of a world filled with evil oddballs in Grand Junction gave an extra kick of weirdness to Heller’s story.

Like the other movie I saw recently, The Odyssey, this felt like a grown-up movie, not the usual teenage fodder. To me, the measure is how invested I get while watching…and how much it really envelops me in the story. The characters in The Dog Stars dropped little hints about the virus and what had happened, and we note that the year is 2035. It’s a great setting for dystopia. I was hooked from the start, though it was a very long start. It took 15 minutes of brilliant scenery (in Italy) and conversation between Hig and his dog to get the story going. A very long opening that I think doomed the film to its sad 40 % Rotten Tomatoes rank. I just enjoyed the scenery; others might have been bored.

I was trying to imagine where Allison Janney would fit into the story when we first heard her on the radio with Hig. Then her world in Grand Junction and her character became macabre and crazy explosions…gone! The weirdness added to the appeal, and Janney is a great character actress.

That is the main thing I look for in a movie. Am I into it? Does it pull me along? Do I forget about the seat, the popcorn, the people around me, and just sink into the story? This one did. It kept me involved all the way through. Even when Scott wandered away from the book, he never left the emotional center of the story, which is Hig. Hig is why the novel works, and he’s why the movie works too.

I noticed that the mountains looked steeper, more severe, than even AI could render. Then I read that Italy’s film tax incentives cover up to 40% of production costs, making it a top choice for international films like this high-budget movie. This financial benefit, along with Italy’s versatile landscapes, led to filming there instead of the more authentic but costlier Colorado.

On screen, Hig is likeable in a way that feels earned. He is profane, maybe more than he needed to be, but the profanity didn’t push me away. It was part of the way he held himself together. He is a man who has lost almost everything, smoked endless cigarettes, and the rough edges are part of the cost of surviving. Jacob Elordi gives him a kind of worn‑down decency. You root for him because he is still trying. He still cares about the small things. He still wants connection. Even in a world that has been stripped to the studs, he hasn’t given up on the idea that life can still matter.

Margaret Qualley is likeable from the beginning, like the prodigal farmer’s daughter, and the way the trio with her dad evolved into dependence and affection was well charted.

Ridley Scott gives Hig more to do than the book did. There are new encounters, new dangers, and a few scenes that stretch the boundaries of the original story. But none of it felt like padding. It felt like Scott wanted to show the world around Hig, not just the inside of his head. The added scenes give the movie a physicality the book didn’t have. You see the landscape, the broken towns, the empty roads, the way the world has gone quiet. It makes Hig’s isolation more real.

And then there is Josh Brolin. He plays Bangley, Hig’s hard‑edged partner in survival. In the book, Bangley is a force of nature. On screen, Brolin makes him even more so. He is sinewy, raw, tough in a way that looks carved rather than acted. He moves like a man who has lived through too many close calls and expects another one any minute. He is not warm, but he is loyal in his own way. He’s one F-bomb away, at all times. You believe he has saved Hig’s life more times than Hig can count. Watching Bangley’s sniper talent is scary, and you can see why Hig is so glad he is there with him.

There is a moment late in the movie when Bangley survives an attack. It is brutal and messy, and for a second you think he is gone. When he emerges alive, my heart brightened. It was a simple reaction, but it told me how much the movie had pulled me in. I cared about him. I cared about Hig. I cared about the small, fragile partnership they had built. That is the mark of a movie that works. It makes you care about people who are trying to hold on to something human in a world that has lost most of its humanity.

Scott’s direction is confident. He doesn’t rush. He lets scenes breathe. He gives you time to sit with Hig’s loneliness, his hope, his stubborn belief that there might still be something worth finding out there. The pacing is steady, and the tension builds in a way that feels natural. The cinematography is sharp without being showy. I viewed some of the dramatic peaks that Hig flies by in the beat-up old Cessna, and they didn’t look like the Rockies.

The landscapes in places like Italy’s Sirente Velino Regional Park look both beautiful and dangerous. The quiet moments land. The violent moments hit hard. The film crew credits listed at the end numbered more than 500; it takes a whole lot of people to create that awful world of 2035.

By the time the movie ended, I realized I had been fully inside it. I was into it. I was involved. I cared. The movie captured me and held me. It honored the book while expanding it. It gave me characters I wanted to follow and a world I believed. It is rare for a movie adaptation to add so much and still stay true to the heart of the story, but this one did. If Ridley Scott set out to make a version of The Dog Stars that stands on its own, he succeeded. It is a movie that pulls you in and keeps you there.

Jacob Elordi as Hig

Margaret Qualley as Cima

Josh Brolin as Bangley

Guy Pearce as Pops

Allison Janney as Darlene

Benedict Wong as Aaron

Ewen Bremner as Crossbow Hunter

James Craze as Logan