Dog Days

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days follows middle-school narrator Greg Heffley through a summer vacation filled with failed schemes, family friction, and unwanted adventures. Greg, a self-described indoor person, wants nothing more than to spend the break playing video games and watching television with the curtains drawn. His mother has other plans entirely.

Greg's summer begins to unravel early. He spends his days at the country club pool with his best friend, Rowley Jefferson, whose family holds a membership. After Greg lodges petty complaints about the service, Rowley tells him he can no longer bring Greg to the club. Greg refuses to go to the town pool with his mom and younger brother, Manny, because the men's locker room traumatizes him. When his mother announces at a family meeting that money is tight and they cannot afford their usual beach vacation, Greg is crushed, mainly because he is finally tall enough to ride the Cranium Shaker, an intense boardwalk ride his older brother, Rodrick, considers a rite of passage.

Greg and his father share one bond: their mutual hatred of "Li'l Cutie," a terrible one-panel comic strip drawn by Bob Post that has run in the local newspaper for at least 30 years. When the paper announces that the final installment will run in August, Greg and Dad count down the days. Beyond this, father and son clash constantly. Dad resents that Greg sleeps until noon, and Greg fakes alertness during Dad's midday check-in calls. Mom takes Greg to Bombshells Beauty Salon for a haircut, where he discovers soap operas, tabloid newspapers, and local gossip. His grandmother, Gramma, whose dog recently died, has too much free time and a habit of believing the tabloids' outlandish stories.

One night while Rodrick is away with his band, Löded Diper, Greg and Rowley sneak into Rodrick's room and find a horror movie. The film features a murderous crawling muddy hand that targets whoever sees it last, and the movie ends with the hand crawling straight at the viewer. Terrified, the boys confess to Greg's dad the next morning. The muddy hand becomes Greg's persistent fear for the rest of the summer, shaping his nightly routines as he sleeps cocooned in blankets and lays paths of objects on the floor to avoid touching the ground.

As punishment, Mom launches a neighborhood reading club to expose boys to classic literature. The club falls apart almost immediately: Mom vetoes every book the boys select, forces them to read Charlotte's Web, and attendance dwindles to Greg alone. The club is suspended after Mr. Jefferson, Rowley's father, presents an $83 bill for fruit smoothies the boys charged to his country club account without realizing anyone had to pay. Mom and Mr. Jefferson agree the boys must earn the money themselves.

Greg and Rowley attempt to start a lawn care business called the V.I.P. Lawn Service. Their one customer, Mrs. Canfield, hires them after Greg impersonates Gramma's voice on the phone to provide a fake reference. Rowley quits on the job site when Greg tries to make him do all the mowing, and Greg finishes alone but steers around every pile of dog waste, leaving the yard mostly untouched. Mrs. Canfield refuses to pay, and the business generates no further work.

Greg's birthday arrives with disappointing results. His main gift is a Ladybug cell phone designed for small children, with only two buttons: one for calling home and one for 911. Mom confiscates his birthday check money to pay off the smoothie debt. As a consolation, she takes the boys to a pet store, where Greg buys a colorful angelfish and Rodrick picks an aggressive fish. Before a family outing to Slipslide Water Park, Mom moves Rodrick's fish into Greg's clean bowl; when they return, the aggressive fish has eaten Greg's angelfish. The water park trip is a disaster: a half-price day at a park designed for toddlers. A thunderstorm shuts everything down, and at a gas stop on the way home, the family accidentally drives off without Mom and must return to the gas station to retrieve her.

On Father's Day, the family goes to Grandpa's for brunch. Dad retells his childhood story about his dog Nutty running away to a butterfly farm, but Grandpa confesses he actually ran over Nutty and invented the story. Dad is furious, leaves Grandpa with the bill, and returns an hour later with a dog in a cardboard box. They name the dog Sweetie, though Rodrick misspells the name as "Sweaty" on the dog's bowl. Sweetie quickly becomes a nuisance, barking at the television, sleeping in Greg's bed, and disrupting Greg's mornings.

Greg's summer takes a brief upward turn when he spots Heather Hills, a high school lifeguard and older sister of his classmate Holly Hills, at the town pool. He begins visiting daily, parking himself beneath her chair and fetching her water. The infatuation cools when a child vomits behind her chair and Heather looks to Greg to clean it up. Meanwhile, when the newspaper solicits a replacement for "Li'l Cutie," Greg creates a comic strip called "Hey, People!" that targets everyday annoyances, including some directed at his dad.

When Mrs. Jefferson invites Greg on the family's beach trip, Greg agrees because he wants to ride the Cranium Shaker. The cabin has no screens, and Greg sends an SOS email to Mom from Mr. Jefferson's work laptop, but Mom replies to Mr. Jefferson's account, exposing Greg. On the boardwalk, Greg rides the Cranium Shaker and is violently nauseated. He and Rowley prank visitors by slipping a dollar bill through the boardwalk planks and yanking it away. That night, Greg snaps the rubber band of Rowley's boppy balloon, a toy balloon on an elastic band, hard against Rowley's arm. Rowley screams, his parents intervene, and Dad drives four hours to bring Greg home.

Back home, an article announces that Tyler Post, Bob Post's son, will continue "Li'l Cutie" indefinitely, dashing Greg and Dad's hopes. Greg overhears Dad making secretive phone plans and finds "Sell Greg" written in Dad's planner in what appears to be Rodrick's handwriting. When Dad drives Greg into the city for a surprise, Greg panics and calls 911 on his Ladybug phone. Police meet them at the destination, which turns out to be a baseball stadium where Mom bought tickets for a father-son outing. Dad is too humiliated and upset to stay for the game.

Greg later learns that Dad's phone call was about Sweetie: His parents decided to give the dog to Gramma. Greg enters a video game tournament, camping out overnight with Rowley. Only two competitors show up, and Rowley wins 15-0 because Greg's thumb is injured after Rowley smashed Greg's hand with a mallet, mistaking it for the muddy hand. Rowley chooses a giant box of chocolate-covered raisins over advancing to the national round.

The new "Li'l Cutie" by Tyler Post debuts and is even worse than the original. Greg shows it to Dad, and they share their first genuine laugh together in days. Greg reflects that he and his father may never have a conventionally close relationship, but they bond over hating the same things, and that is enough. Mom finishes a summer photo album presenting a cheerful, distorted version of events. Greg observes that whoever takes the pictures gets to tell the story.