Marley & Me (Blu-ray)

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The photograph on the cover of "Marley and Me" shows a cute little puppy. Unfortunately, the David Frankel directed film doesn´t spend a lot of time with Marley as a puppy and the film quickly matures with the rapidly growing dog and instead of being cute as represented by the box art, "Marley and Me" becomes a harsh lesson on life. It is about children, drastic life changes, death and remorse. There is a little cuteness contained within the film, but "Marley and Me" is hardly the feel-good hit of 2008. After watching the film I found myself remembering pets, family and friends that I had lost and wondering what the hell I have accomplished so far in my life with the age of forty less than a handful of years away. I hate it when a film plays with my emotions.

"Marley and Me" stars Owen Wilson as Josh Grogan in the autobiographical memoir by Grogan. Jennifer Aniston portrays his wife Jenny Grogan and Eric Dane costars as his friend Sebastian with Alan Arkin wonderfully taking on the role of newspaper editor Arnie Klein. The movie begins with Jenny and John moving to Florida where each is hired by separate newspapers. Jenny finds quick prominence for her paper and has her work appear on the front page, while John is asked to write the obituaries. John´s feelings of inferiority to his wife are compounded when it appears that Jenny would like to start a family and under the guidance of his friend Sebastian, John adopts Jenny a puppy for her birthday. While the birthday is a month away, they settle on the ´Discount Puppy´ which turns out to be Marley.

From very early on the dog shows a penchant for chewing and running off. Jenny thinks the behavior is funny at first, but it doesn´t take long before they realize that they must take the grown up Marley to obedience school. There Ms. Kornblut (Kathleen Turner) ridicules John, but learns that Marley is a leg humper and refuses to train the dog as leg humping spreads to other dogs quickly. The misadventures of Marley soon prove to be a goldmine for John as he is asked by his boss to write two columns a week instead of reporting on unimportant stories. The tales of Marley are enjoyed by the newspapers readers and John´s columns become a hit. John´s easy demeanor and ability to make light of situations establish him with the community.

The film quickly moves away from the mischievous pooch and becomes a study on the hardships of raising a family. Jenny has a miscarriage and this causes suffering for the young couple. However, Jenny soon becomes pregnant again and welcomes Patrick to the world. It isn´t long before pregnancy once again strikes the Grogan family and Jenny decides to quit her job to raise her two children when Connor is born. Arnie doubles John´s salary to agree to writing a daily column, but John soon becomes tired of writing fun stories and wants to do more serious work. After a third child, daughter Colleen is born, the stresses of the Grogan household become more and more and John accepts a job in Philadelphia. There they being a new life, but Marley is winding down his own long life.

"Marley and Me" isn´t a bad film, but it was marketed as more of a comedy and not as the soul twisting tearjerker that it pines to become before the film ends. It becomes lighthearted enough as two young people start a new life with a chew happy puppy who even eats drywall, but after the first act the tone of the film changes dramatically. The second act finds John and Jenny constantly bickering in a testament that no relationship runs smoothly and bumpy roads are always going to be travelled upon. This second act is quite ugly at times and I must give Jennifer Aniston a little credit for being the perfect bitch. The third act is a sad experience and will have many remembering back to when their first dog died or when an old friend passed on. The film slows down the pace to make Marley´s passing a sorrowful experience and this final act is not a pleasing experience.

My problem with the film is not in the writing, acting or execution of "Marley and Me," but with the expectations I had going into the film. Wilson and Aniston are typically cast in romantic comedies and the marketing certainly pointed in the direction that this would be familiar ground. I wasn´t prepared for a movie with a first act of fun, a second act of anger and a third act of death. I knew the dog died, but I was expecting the film to be far more playful in trying to engage my heart strings to love the animal before it passed. Instead, large portions of the film have nothing to do with Marley and more with the struggles between Jenny and John. I felt betrayed and wasn´t ready to sit down and hear the gospel of growing old and dying.

After watching the film I had to ask myself of what I have accomplished so far in my life. I don´t have a loving and troublesome dog to watch grow old. There are no three kids or beautiful house in my next few years. Sure, I don´t want three kids, but the beautiful home would be nice. I can´t even tell you for sure if I´m going to have this amazing young lady in my life in four months let alone four years. Marley is a faithful friend and family member and he is a representation of long and faithful relationships. The dog is a metaphor and the film goes out of its way to let you know this. While Marley brings lots of headaches to John, the character does not have a lot of human friends, but Marley is the most faithful friend he could ask for. In the end he loses Marley, but he is left with a beautiful wife and three loving kids. This entire movie set up a depressing lesson on life and left me feeling as if I have failed somewhere along the line.

I wanted to be entertained. I didn´t want my feelings to be toyed with by a film that cared more towards forcing me into feeling a certain way than it did entertaining me. I imagine that John Grogan´s book is a phenomenal read and I will admit that the story is moving, but I am going to hold my grudge against the marketing campaign of this film for quite a while. It succeeded into making me feel like crap and I didn´t appreciate that. Wasn´t expecting it. Movies like this need warning labels. But I digress. There is an audience for "Marley and Me" and I can´t help but feeling those that love Lifetime or the Hallmark Classics are going to feel this is one of the greatest films in years. Have at it. I won´t be sitting down to watch this movie anytime soon. Instead I´ll just wait for Owen Wilson to finally film that biography on Rod Stewart. And if that happens, I better get a producers credit.