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Needy human animals straining against the leash of emotional expectations make Mike White's low-key "Year of the Dog" more situation tragedy than situation comedy. But Molly Shannon's bittersweet portrayal of its lonely canine-loving heroine, along with a passel of pups trying to steal the picture, make for a satisfyingand funny, if ironic, comedy intended for lovers of both the beast and/or sophisticated laughs.

Marvelously and subtly shot by cinematographer Tim Orr -- who creates wonderfully shiny, sterile surfaces under which White agitates his characters -- "Year of the Dog" centers around Peggy (Shannon), an office assistant with a wide gummy smile who's obsessively attached to her beagle, Pencil. When Pencil meets an untimely end, the guilt-wracked Peggy is left to find something to fill the void in her life, spent mostly doting on other people's children, treating her co-workers to daily donuts and otherwise making no impression on anyone's world but her own.

Storyline is more episodic than linear. The humans she does meet -- asexual activist Newt (Peter Sarsgaard), her irritating super-mom sister-in-law Bret (Laura Dern) and her neurotic boss Robin (Josh Pais), all wonderfully portrayed -- don't offer much solace for Peggy. In a uniquely mismatched love interest, her increasing affinity for animals dooms her relationship with next-door neighbor and gun nut Al (John C. Reilly). So she goes to the dogs, literally and figuratively.

White, who has had a long comedic pedigree as a screenwriter, with such films as "The School of Rock," "The Good Girl" and "Chuck & Buck," makes his directing debut here, and the result is a full realization of the ironic undertones in his previous work. It's left to the individual viewer as to whether Peggy is simply a generous soul unappreciated by life or one so love-starved that animals fill the need she can't satisfy through human contact.

White is not a conventionally comic writer, and "Year of the Dog" is not a conventional comedy; both are fatalistically funny and resigned to the concept of unhappiness but generous enough to accept whatever a character may need to do to avoid it.

Camera (color, 35mm, Fuji, Deluxe prints) Tim Orr; editor, Dody Dorn; music, Christophe Beck; production designers, Daniel Bradford, Nancy Steiner; art director, Macie Vener; set decorator, K.C. Fox; costume supervisor, Stacy M. Horn; makeup, Dionne P. Smith; supervising sound editors,/re-recording mixers (Dolby Digital/SDDS/DTS), Aaron Glascock, Curt Shulkey; sound-effects editor, John Thomas; visual effects, Invisible Effects; visual effects supervisor, Dick Edwards; casting, Meredith Tucker. Reviewed at the Sundance Film Festival, Jan. 20, 2007. Running time: 98 MIN.