Marley & Me Movie Review
What are some great dog movies that spring to mind? Old Yeller? My Dog Skip? Where the Red Fern Grows? or maybe, Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey? Well, add Marley & Me to the list. It’ll be a favorite for a long time to come. And yet the funny thing is that this isn’t just a great dog movie. It’s a great family movie. And a great date movie. It’s just a great movie. Period. It’s just a great movie about how life changes us.
Based on the book Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog by John Grogan, the movie brings to life a 12-year span from the memoirs of John (Owen Wilson, Wedding Crashers), his new wife Jenny (Jennifer Anniston, The Break-up) and the “clearance puppy” they bring home to see what life is like when you add someone (-thing) new. The movie also stars Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine, Get Smart) who steals a few scenes as the editor of the daily paper where Grogan is climbing his way up from beat writer to columnist. In this we see the impetus for Grogan’s story.
And oh, what a story! There are plenty of scenes that will leave you laughing at Marley (played by 12 different dogs) throughout his puppy and adult life. This was one crazy dog! Particularly enjoyable are the destruction scenes in the house, the table incident in the restaurant, and the opening run on the beach. But as I said before, this isn’t a funny dog movie whose only hold on the audience is a shallow laugh. It uses the humor to enhance the beauty and appeal of the story of a couple learning how to grow up, grow a family and fall more in love with the life they’ve built.
From the pain of getting their family started to the challenges of everyday life as a husband and wife, this movie really gets at the heart of what life is about when you’re in love: commitment. It’s so refreshing to see situations the audience can readily identify with handled with such authenticity and hope. When things in their marriage were hard, there was a palpable feeling that things had to work because their first priority was their commitment to see things through. That thread carries through the whole story. This is the kind of movie where you cry and you’re glad to let it out. You’re glad because you know you haven’t been unfairly manipulated, but you’ve entered into a story that we all share.
Owen and Anniston do a fantastic job in this movie and are one of the most believable couples in recent memory. In fact, that sums up the appeal of this movie as a whole. It’s believable. I know we want most of our movies to carry us away. We want to escape from our lives for an hour and a half and picture ourselves in a story we don’t get to live out. But sometimes, it takes a movie like Marley & Me to remind us just how good our lives are.
