Puppy love! (Marley & Me (DVD))

Member Name: FairyG

Product:	Marley & Me (DVD)
Date:	19/03/09 (194 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An entertaining family film.

Disadvantages: Some sad bits and adult themes that wouldn't interest younger children.

After a stressful day I suddenly decided I wanted to see Marley and Me. After all it had cute puppies and Owen Wilson. It was bound to be a feelgood movie. Wasn't it? Hmm. The previews make it look fun fun fun all the way through, but it isn't. That doesn't make it a bad film though, just not quite what I thought.

Based on the book by John Grogan, Marley and Me tells the story of John (Owen Wilson) and his wife Jenny (Jennifer Aniston) who move to West Palm Beach, get work as journalists and buy a house. But John's best friend Sebastian (Eric Dane) warns him that now they've bought the house, Jenny is sure to want a baby next, and the best way to delay that is to give her a puppy to look after instead.

John sees the logic in that, and along comes the boisterous Marley. It isn't long before it starts to seem like a drastic mistake. Marley does not answer to his name, he chews everything in sight, drinks the toilet water, and howls uncontrollable during thunderstorms. Jenny and John take Marley to dog-training school, with disastrous results, and John decides he is the world's worse dog. Meanwhile John is struggling to get ahead as a columnist and it's through writing about Marley he begins to make a name for himself. His boss Arnie (Alan Arkin) likes his new column, but can John's relationship with Jenny survive, or does the dog have to go?

Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson have great onscreen chemistry going on between them in this film and it's a pleasure to watch them together. The old adage about never working with children and animals seems to be at work here because sometimes I got the impression that Jennifer Aniston was barely controlling a fit of the giggles, and her affection for the dogs in the film seemed to be genuine.

Owen Wilson is a bit more serious than his usual comedy role, but the humour does come through where appropriate, and he also has a great rapport with the dogs that played Marley. Sometimes he's going around with doggie slobber on his face and doesn't seem at all bothered, although it did disappear each time the camera cut away from him!

Eric Dane is likeable in the role of sexy, roving-eyed, ambitious reporter Sebastian who is instrumental in pushing along the more laid-back family minded John in his career.

Alan Arkin plays Alan Arkin as always. He's dry, laconic and amusing as John's boss.

This isn't the comedy film you might expect though. The first quarter of the film is funniest, but then it develops into a film about a family's ups and downs, complete with tragedies, arguments, and career anxieties. There are a lot of serious moments and a lot of very sad moments. There's also a fantastic and funny rapid montage of shots showing events in Marley's life as he's growing up. It only last a few minutes, but at the end of it we know a lot more about Marley's behaviour and his effect on the family.

One particular fault that stood out was the inconsistency in the dog's appearance. Apparently over 20 dogs were used to portray Marley, understandable, as dogs tend to grow at the wrong pace for making a film. Unfortunately it showed. In one scene Marley would be older/heavier and in another he'd be younger/slimmer.

It's an entertaining film, but I wouldn't advise it as a film for younger children, because some of the more adult scenes will just be boring for them, and 115 minutes is a long time to expect them to sit still. It should hold the attention of older children, and is of course a must-see film for dog-lovers.

Runtime: 115 minutes
Director: David Frankel
Certificate: PG

This review is also on Helium under my pen name A Marshall

Summary: Worth watching. Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston are great together.