Marley & Me
Setting a record for the largest Christmas Day opening ever, 2008’s Marley & Me milks every ounce of sentimentality from the predictable formula and turns out a bland, largely uninteresting effort. The film, directed by David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada), is based on the memoir of the same name by John Grogan. The book became a bestseller due to its portrayal of Marley, the mischievous but lovable dog.
Frankel’s picture takes the book and folds it into a basic dramedy for the whole family, although there really isn’t a lot here that will be of interest for younger children. I was surprised at just how much Marley & Me resembled a drama procedural, much like Terms of Endearment, and focused more on scenes of conversation and figuring things out and less on scenes of action and comic situations. It is difficult to establish a purpose to the narrative after a while.
Owen Wilson stars as Grogan and Jennifer Aniston stars as his wife Jenny. We are introduced to the young couple as they move from Michigan to Florida. They’re journalists and Jenny possesses more talent, so she gets the plum job right out of the gate. John has to slog away writing obits and mundane two-paragraph articles. Jenny wants to be a mother, so John suggests the next best thing and they get a dog. They pick out a yellow lab and name it Marley.
The dog is, of course, incorrigible. We know that it is incorrigible because it, well, acts like a dog without much training. There is an attempt to train the dog c/o Katherine Hepburn’s embarrassing dog trainer, but Marley is expelled from class and is subsequently dubbed the World’s Worst Dog. John is dissatisfied at work but is soon offered a twice-weekly column by his boss (Alan Arkin). He takes it and begins to write about his adventures with Marley and about life.
We join the Grogans as they go through everything with Marley. They eventually have kids, too, and the family moves to a larger home where Marley can swim in the pool. There is nothing particularly unique about the Grogans, other than their propensity to lead a particularly good life with swimming pools, big houses, and lots of space for their dog to run around. John and Jenny have spats over the kids and career moves, adding even more normalcy to what could essentially have carried out on the small screen without much of a fuss.
Much has been made of the final frames of Marley & Me. It is true that most stories about dogs and people end in similar ways, but Frankel tacks on an ending so ripe with manipulative drivel and extended weepiness that it becomes hard to watch with a straight face. The film’s misdirection prevents any actual real emotion from pouring out in the end, save from those who’ve been there before with a family pet.
For a movie based on the concept of a rambunctious and lovable dog, Marley & Me lacks both rambunctiousness and heart. There is simply no energy to this project and the formulaic approach sucks any potential for life right out of it. The musical manipulation is in full gear, with light pitter-patter telling us when we should laugh and long string intakes telling us when something sad/bad is going to happen. It’s all very heavy-handed.
The actors do nothing to lend interest to the story. There’s little here beyond a sort of dramatic sitcom, with Aniston and Wilson carrying out featherweight confrontations with over-rehearsed flaccidity. The movie just hangs there, waiting to be snipped, and there’s nothing of consequence to provide any remembrance of the whole procedure after the end credits roll. It is overlong, dreary, and dry.
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