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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Marley & Me

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#1 of 1 Posted 12/23/08 8:59 PM

From harveykarten Posts 744 Last Nov-19
To All [Msg # 23653.1 ]

MARLEY & ME

20th Century Fox/ Regency Enterprises
Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten
Grade: B+
Directed by: David Frankel
Written By: Scott Frank, Donald Roos, from John Grogan’s best-selling memoir
Cast: Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Alan Arkin, Eric Dane, Kathleen Turner
Screened at: Fox, NYC, 12/17/08
Opens: December 25, 2008
i
To twist a popular saying into reversal, “Children are for people who can’t have dogs.” In the U.S. there are now fifty million dogs which have found homes, though in many cases, happily, many of them have babies and children to play with along with their mature folks. Some believe that children put enough tension on a marriage to break it apart, while others say that kids can bring people together. Scott Frank and Donald Roos, who adapted John Grogan’s best-seller for the current movie version helmed by David Frankel, adopt the same philosophy about dogs. The four-legged creatures beloved by most of us in the Western World and reviled by many in other cultures can provide years of entertainment for men, women and children who are lucky enough to have them in their households, but the more mischievous ones can put a crimp in the relationship. And while dogs pass through adolescence by the same they’re two years old, they can be puckish for so many years afterward. Yet when they reach an age that finds them unable to walk without arthritic pain until they can barely move at all, their people yearn for the days that their pets created so much mayhem.

Such is the case with Jennifer Grogan (Jennifer Aniston) and her husband John Grogan (Owen Wilson) in a story that follows the book, taking the Grogan house through a decade or so of marriage. After trying to have a child for quite a while, they decided like quite a large number of young marrieds to buy a pup, their heart set on a Labrador Retriever which they pick—or were picked by—the least expensive body in a large litter.   Marley, as they named their pet because both Grogans are fans of Bob Marley, is button-cute at twelve pounds, taken home only after being fully weaned, and he proves to be a handful. Thinking that the dog’s whining after his incarceration in a box to sleep awaysa from his “parents” would be the only real problem, they are flummoxed to discover that in the course of a single day Marley can chew up their starter house in West Palm Beach, Florida, chase down the UPS delivery guy, drink from the toilet, run away from them at the beach, overturn garbage cans, get expelled by a trainer (Kathleen Turner) as incorrigible when he balks at instruction, and require them to hire the services of a young woman to take care of Marley when they take a vacation in Ireland.

The movie, however, is only peripherally about the title character. John Grogan, who knocked out the best-selling volume a few years back, must have figured that his publisher would be lucky to sell a couple of thousand copies. (He may have been put off by the fact that in the Nineteenth Century, the three most popular words in the American-English dictionary were “Lincoln,” “doctor,” and “dog.” Someone wrote a book called “Lincoln’s Doctor’s Dog.” It was a flop.)

Grogan does discover that his writing is in demand when his boss at a Florida daily newspaper, Arnie Klein (Alan Arkin), pronounces his columns so hysterical that Grogan was taken off reporting with salary doubled as a columnist. Babies come, the Grogans moved up to Philadelphia where John lands a job with the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Marley begins to age and go downhill as do all dogs who live for more than a decade. The final, inevitable scenes could bring tears to the eyes of those of us who shared the love of their canines only to lose them in the most heartbreaking way.

“Marley & Me” shows an Owen Wilson who is still funny but takes on a more serious demeanor as his character must navigate the course after his wife, Jennifer, has an unfortunate miscarriage following serious attempt to conceive. By chucking the wise-guy self which he exhibited so well in “Meet the Parents” and “Wedding Crashers,” moving closer to his performance as Francis Whitman in “The Darjeeling Express,” he demonstrates a breadth of talent. His chemistry with Jennifer Aniston, who displays enormous energy and lust for life, is palpable, his relationship with his best friend and fellow journalist, Sebastian (Eric Dane) poignant. When John runs into Sebastian by accident in Philadephia, he casts his usual envious eye on the handsome man who has been assigned to exciting stories in Colombia and other foreign parts. Yet the real sadness belongs to Sebastian whose envy of his less-traveled pal is evident by the sad look that crosses his face as he leaves John, then immediately puts the move on two young women walking down the street.

In other words, family is the way to go: a house, a white picket fence, a loving wife, adorable children and an affectionate, frisky pup represent the closest we get to Eden. From the looks of Marley—whose role is inhabited by twenty-two different dogs—he is overjoyed to be with these lovely, adoring, and sometimes furious human parents.

Rated PG.   125 minutes. © 2008 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online

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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Marley & Me

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