Happy New Year!

Every December, multiplexes are flooded with Oscar bait movies, and without fail, 99% of them hold no interest in making me shill out $10+. Brad Pitt aging backwards? That’s a rental. Ditto that one about the millionaire with the subtitles. They might be great, I just typically don’t have the patience, especially at Holiday time, for these ultra-downer flicks. Now a movie with a doggie – sign me up.

I’m not much of a reader, but after the missus read Marley & Me, she told me I had to read it when she was done. As the proud owners of a (sometimes) bad dog, we could relate to life with a furry friend who is very slow to learn. And as a young(ish) couple, we got a glimpse at a possible future with jobs, kids, houses, and how the dog plays into all of that. Overall, the book was a fun and easy read, despite the fact that I was pretty much bawling at the end.

And we had almost exactly the same reaction to the movie – totally relatable and very funny, in spite of the mega-downer that you know is coming. The book was able to go into more depth, and some of Marley’s antics were somewhat glazed over. The film also took some liberties with the story-telling, focusing more on the marriage between John and Jenny than on John’s relationship with Marley, but it still worked for the purposes of a movie adaptation. Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston did fine in their respective roles, but I really loved the performances of the many Marleys. I’m always fascinated with how well doggie actors are trained to behave. Or in this case, maybe they were just bad dogs acting natural. I loved the way puppy Marley ate his kibble while sprawled on the floor, and the way that, after taking off while attached to the table leg, he paused, looked behind him, saw that he was dragging the table, and kept right on going.

My biggest complaint with the movie was that it ended a little before the book did. In the book, after Marley passes away, John is comforted by a huge outpouring of support from readers of his column, who commiserated about their experiences with dogs and loss. The fact is that it’s still depressing, but I liked the way the book showed how Marley had touched more people than just the Grogans. In the end, both book and movie dealt with the sad parts of life in a realistic way, and even though the family goes through some dark times, the emphasis is always on the positive, which is why both were still heart-warming and overall, really enjoyable.