‘Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight' Review: Growing Pains on a Global Stage

Wall Street Journal

10-07-2025

Meet Bobo, an eight-year-old girl growing up in southern Africa in 1980. She roars around unsupervised on a motorbike, rarely bathes, steals her father's cigarettes and smokes them, sings bawdy songs while sticking her head out the car window, and sneaks the occasional beer. Her verdict on her own character: 'There's nothing wrong with me, I'm perfect!' she says. Who could disagree?
Oh, and in the brilliantly evocative memoir-based film 'Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight,' when she gets up in the middle of the night to tinkle, she worries about lurking terrorists. We're in a place (temporarily) called Zimbabwe Rhodesia, where British families like Bobo's are getting slaughtered by guerillas who are seeking to seize control of the country. A trip from her farm to town means joining a convoy of soldiers trained to look out for land mines; from the child's point of view, however, this merely means long, boring waits.