BEFORE: My wife read the book, and I read enough reviews of the books to know about Marley's story, but that still didn't stop me from yelling at a woman on the subway about a year ago, after she discussed the end of the film out loud. I mean, who DOES that? The subway, an elevator, plane trips - these are supposed to be spoiler free zones. It made me want to follow this woman around and find out what movies she hadn't seen yet, and ruin the endings of those films for her.
THE PLOT: A family learns important life lessons from their adorable but naughty and neurotic dog.
AFTER: An endearing film, yes, but also quite subversive in its own way. There's no 6-act Hollywood structure, and the plot point are similar to those we all might encounter in everyday life. Getting married, getting a pet, going on job interviews, having children - well, that last one I tend to leave to other people, but you get the idea.
Really, it's a film about a guy who lands a newspaper column, and chooses to write about his everyday experiences on a daily basis. I can get behind that. And owning a pet is mostly universal, but owning an untrainable pet turned out to be something really entertaining. For the reading public, probably not for Marley's owners.
We happen to have an untrainable cat - she races through the house at top speed, then howls at the top of her lungs. She hisses at cats in the yard and "talks" to birds (probably about how much she wants to eat them). She protests whenever my wife gets into "her" bed, and has been known to attack my wife's foot when she's sleeping. And if you touch her belly or hold her upside-down, well, then I can't be held responsible. It was nice knowing you, really.
But of course I was thinking of Merlin during the last half-hour of this film, and I was crying like a baby, I'm not ashamed to admit it. I think a lot of pet owners know this pain, and if you don't feel something while watching this, then you must be dead inside.
There were no flashy special effects, no dance numbers, no international intrigue, but sometimes you can gain great insight into life by examining little on-screen moments, and that's what I think happened here. Just a dog and a family? How can that be "just" anything? Some might say there's no point here, but I disagree, even if I can't verbalize it just now.
Owen Wilson carries over from being the voice of Marmaduke, which reminds me that I've fallen behind on linking between the films, I've just been linking with the cats and dogs. Maybe I'll get back to that, maybe not.
Also starring Jennifer Aniston (last seen in "The Break-Up"), Alan Arkin (last seen in "Sunshine Cleaning"), Eric Dane (last seen in "Valentine's Day"), with a cameo from Kathleen Turner (last seen in "The War of the Roses").
RATING: 7 out of 10 thunderstorms
UPDATE: I was home today with a cold - for once I decided not to share it with co-workers. While napping I had a dream where we were moving to a new house, packing up all of our stuff, unpacking, figuring out where furniture was going to go. You know, a nightmare. I blame this film.
Upon further reflection, and your mileage may vary, the film works as both a re-confirmation of my life choices, and a sad commentary on the American Dream. Here's how I see it - guy works as a freelance newspaper columnist, gets married, gets a dog, and life is good for these 2 DINKS (double income, no kids). OK, so maybe they have to spend a few bucks on replacement furniture that the dog chews up, but so what? Who has time to train a dog, when their careers are both going so well?
Then baby #1 comes along, and things take a turn. Now Mom's got to quit and stay home with the baby, which means less money, or they've got to hire help, which means less money. See, you can't win that way. Another kid comes along, and Dad's got to keep asking for bigger jobs or more work, to keep buying bigger houses that they can't afford. Wasn't this what caused the U.S. economy to crash a couple years ago? Plus, they're fighting all the time.
Remember when it was just the two of you and the dog, in that little seaside condo? You were HAPPY, and you blew it, because society says you've got to procreate. You got unconditional love from your dog with a minimum of effort, you could go on vacation, buy nice jewelry, but all that's over now.
Kids, dogs, cats - you go ahead and do what you want, but I'm just sayin'.
"Marley And Me" is another candidate for a film festival I'd like to program. It'd be a two-day marathon of movies that have no idea how much money newspaper columnists make. Let's see...there's "Never Been Kissed," in which a newspaper copy editor rates an office and and assistant..."Crocodile Dundee" in which the columnist lives in a world in which every room is paneled with either marble or wood from the last acre of some old-growth forest..."Superman" in which Lois Lane has a huge penthouse apartment in New York City...
ReplyDelete...I mean, did I get my newspaper column a decade or three too late? Should I be riding the gravy train to easy street?
But yes. If you don't have Something In Your Eye by the end of this movie, you should definitely get checked for some sort of neurological disorder. This is exactly the sort of physiological non-reaction that Dr. House would zero in on right after the last commercial break.
I wondered why so many of my friends are childless. For about ten seconds. "Duhh," I thought. "They're available to hang out on weekends and weeknights, just like you are. It's a Darwinian filter."
One of these friends also noted the consistency and suggested founding a retirement community for elderly childless members of our social circles.