George Jacques’ Black Dog is a restrained, meditative inward journey, the manifestation of which is paralleled by a road trip. We have two young boys, battered by life at a tender age, journeying up North in search of peace, identity, and companionship. Their lives – so diametrically opposed to each other – coincide with a purpose, and we see them help each other make sense of the world around them. Interestingly, the evocation of the inherent poignant mood can be ascribed to the personal histories of Jacques and his co-author, Jamie Flatters.
Spoilers Ahead
How do Nathan and Sam meet each other?
In London, Nathan, just about to turn eighteen, is abandoning his familiar ties with his foster home to go find his sister in Scotland. He bumps into a school-going boy, Sam, who gets stuck in a violent brawl. Although Nathan beats up the bullies who pinned down Sam, he picks up his wallet without permission. Sam, on the other hand, has recently lost his mother and is suffering from depression and xylophagia. As he prepares to take a six-hour-long journey to Scotland, Nathan shows up at his door, trying to slip him his wallet surreptitiously. Nathan recognizes Sam as an alumnus of the primary school he attended. Sam drops Nathan at the nearby station and prepares to bid him adieu. However, as he mistakenly drops his money, which scatters all over like confetti as the train passes meanwhile, the boys know that they are going to be stuck together for a while yet. The two then together embark on a journey to the North.
How is Nathan different from Sam?
The differences between Nathan and Sam and their personal motivations behind undertaking the journey and its resultant consequence on each end endow Black Dog with its personal tone. There is no one side of the story that finds primacy over the other, that is to say, Nathan is as much an important catalyst as Sam. From either perspective, the story makes just as much sense.
Nathan, estranged from his sister at a young age, has grown up in foster care and his circles ensure he is surrounded by addicts and goons. Sam’s upbringing is way more sophisticated; he is evidently more courteous. However, Sam is also more rattled, a conversation that Nathan would not like to have. To Nathan, Sam’s posh upbringing is a clear indicator of his life being cocooned and, therefore, devoid of any hardcore experience. Nathan patronizes Sam into acknowledging his role in saving his face and his life when he got attacked by the guys up at the blind alley. He coaxes Sam to not let a taxi get ahead of him while he is driving and asserts that he should not let others take advantage of him. Nathan’s rough handling of Sam comes from a disdain for a lifestyle that coddled him, something that Nathan was deprived of. At the pit stop at a gas station, Sam hides himself inside the toilet and, overcome by anxiety, starts eating toilet paper.
Sam is evidently more driven by his moral compass, unlike Nathan. When he accidentally mows down a dog, he tries to call its owner. Annoyed by his futile attempt to make amends, Nathan kills it at once, putting it out of its misery to ease its pain. After their bond grows somewhat firmer, Nathan reveals that Scarlett, his sister, was taken away from the foster home and sent to a halfway house. The foster homes only support kids until they are eighteen; then one has to sustain themselves. Nathan leaves just as he is about to turn eighteen, so that he does not find himself amidst the insult and the heartbreak of getting thrown out.
Due to Sam’s reticent disposition, he does not really express much about his own struggles verbally. This causes Nathan to misjudge Sam’s maturity, as he is the only one who has explicitly revealed his maturity and experience. Nathan assumes himself to be the more mature of the two, not knowing what secret lies beneath the surface. Nathan’s constant jibes calling him ‘posh’ and ‘little kid’ grate on Sam. However, this confrontation opens Nathan’s tough exterior and exposes his sensitive nature.
What does the black dog in the title signify?
In the British popular imagination and discourse, the motif of the black dog is suggestive of penitentiary institutions like prisons and psychiatric facilities. It is also a foreboding signifier that stands for the lurking dangers of depression. Most prominently, the name ‘Black Dog’ was bestowed upon a prison in Newhall Market in Dublin, Ireland. We see the black dog appear first in the film at Sam’s house. However, for Sam, it bears a new meaning. The motif meticulously brings forth Sam’s suffering from depression. His pet black dog almost brings to our mind Samuel Johnson’s letter to James Boswell, where he writes, “What will you do to keep away the black dog that worries you at home?” — an allusion to the metaphorical bugbear that festers in his mind.
Sam’s fellow traveler, Nathan, shares with him a similar sense of dread, only in a different context. As he is left to fend for himself just as his time at the foster care is about to come to a close, he reevaluates his personal history. The experience at the foster home is akin to living in a penitentiary. With his sister torn from him at a young age, Nathan is not aware of his roots and struggles to trace his identity.
Why do we not see Nathan and Scarlett reuniting?
In the end, Nathan knocks at the door of his sister’s house. A man shows up but does not recognize Nathan. Nathan does not hang around for too long. As he prepares to leave, the man loudly summons Scarlett from the door. We only see her legs as she climbs down the staircase, well visible from the door. Black Dog adds to the dread of the characters’ minds and makes no effort to show a happy reconciliation between the brother and sister. It leaves the question hanging – will Nathan be accepted by Scarlett? Does she turn him away? Perhaps we will never know. What matters in the end is he has undertaken an arduous but life-changing journey with a friend. In the end, the destination, so desired once, becomes second to the experience of the expedition.
